It now remains for us to describe the development of the Kabbalah, to point out the different schools into which its followers are divided, and to detail the literature which this theosophy called into existence in the course of time. The limits of this Essay demand that this should be done as briefly as possible.The great land mark in the development of the Kabbalah is the birth ofthe Sohar, which divides the history of this theosophy into two periods, viz., the pre-Soharperiod and the post-Soharperiod. During these two periods different schools developed themselves, which are classified by the erudite historian, Dr. Graetz, as follows:—1I.—THE SCHOOL OF GERONA, so called from the fact that the founders of it were born in this place and established the school in it. To this school, which is the cradle of the Kabbalah, belong1. Isaac the Blind (flour. 1190–1210), denominated the Father of the Kabbalah. His productions have become a prey to time, and only a few fragments have survived as quotations in other theosophic works. From these we learn that he espoused the despised doctrine of metempsychosis as an article of creed, and that from looking into a man’s face, he could tell whether the individual possessed a new soul from the celestial world of spirits, or whether he had an old soul which has been migrating from body to body and has still to accomplish its purity before its return to rest in its heavenly home.[190]2. Azariel and Ezra, disciples of Isaac the Blind. The former of these is the author of the celebratedCommentary on the Ten Sephiroth, which is the first Kabbalistic production, and of which we have given an analysis in the second part of this Essay (vide supra, p. 176). Of Ezra next to nothing is known beyond the fact that his great intimacy with Azariel led some writers to identify the two names.3. Jehudah b. Jakar, a contemporary of the foregoing Kabbalists. No works of his have survived, and he is only known as the teacher of the celebrated Nachmanides and from being quoted as a Kabbalistic authority.4. Moses Nachmanides, born in Gerona about 1195, the pupil of Azariel, Ezra, and Jehudah Ibn Jakar. It was the conversion of this remarkable and famous Talmudist to this newly-born Kabbalah which gave to it an extraordinary importance and rapid spread amongst the numerous followers of Nachmanides. It is related that, notwithstanding all the efforts of his teachers, Nachmanides at first was decidedly adverse to this system; and that one day the Kabbalist who most exerted himself to convert him was caught in a house of ill fame and condemned to death. He requested Nachmanides to visit him on the Sabbath, being the day fixed for his execution; and when Nachmanides reproved him for his sins, the Kabbalist declared that he was innocent, and that he would appear at his house on this very day, after the execution, and partake with him the Sabbath meal. He proved true to his promise, as by means of the Kabbalistic mysteries he effected that, and an ass was executed in his stead, and he himself was suddenly transposed into Nachmanides’ house. From that time Nachmanides avowed himself a disciple of the Kabbalah, and was initiated into its mysteries.2His numerous writings, an account of which will be found in Alexander’s edition of[191]Kitto’s Cyclopædia, underNachmanides, are pervaded with the tenets of this system. In the Introduction to his Commentary on the Pentateuch he remarks—“We possess a faithful tradition that the whole Pentateuch consists of names of the Holy One, blessed be he; for the words may be divided into sacred names in another sense, so that it is to be taken as an allegory. Thus the words—בראשית ברא אלהיםin Gen. i, 1 , may be redivided into other words,ex. gr.בראש יתברא אלהים.In like manner is the whole Pentateuch, which consists of nothing but transpositions and numerals of divine names.”35. TheTreatise on the Emanations(מסכת אצילות), supposed to have been written by R. Isaac Nasir in the first half of the twelfth century. The following is an analysis of this production. Based upon the passage—“Jaresiah and Eliah and Zichri, the sons of Jeroham” ( 1 Chron. viii, 27 ), which names theMidrashassigns to the prophet Eliah (Shemoth Rabba, cap. xl), this prophet is introduced as speaking and teaching under the four names of Eliah b. Josep, Jaresiah b. Joseph, Zechariah b. Joseph and Jeroham b. Joseph. Having stated that the secret and profounder views of the Deity are only to be communicated to the God-fearing, and that none but the pre-eminently pious can enter into the temple of this higher gnosis, the prophet Elias propounds the system of this secret doctrine, which consists in the following maxims—“I. God at first created light and darkness, the one for the pious and the other for the wicked, darkness having come to pass by the divine limitation of light. II. God produced and destroyed sundry worlds, which, like ten trees planted upon a narrow space, contend about the sap of the soil, and finally perish altogether. III. God manifested himself in four worlds,[192]viz.—Atzilah,Beriah,JetziraandAsiah, corresponding to the Tetragrammatonיהוה. In theAtzilatic luminous worldis the divine majesty, the Shechinah. In theBriatic worldare the souls of the saints, all the blessings, the throne of the Deity, he who sits on it in the form of Achtenal (the crown of God, the firstSephira), and the seven different luminous and splendid regions. In theJetziraticworld are the sacred animals from the vision of Ezekiel, the ten classes of angels with their princes, who are presided over by the fiery Metatron, the spirits of men, and the accessory work of the divine chariot. In theAssiaticworld are the Ophanim, the angels who receive the prayers, who are appointed over the will of man, who control the action of mortals, who carry on the struggle against evil, and who are presided over by the angelic prince Synandelphon. IV. The world was founded in wisdom and understanding ( Prov. iii, 19 ), and God in his knowledge originated fifty gates of understanding. V. God created the world by means of theten Sephiroth, which are both the agencies and qualities of the Deity. Theten Sephirothare called Crown, Wisdom, Intelligence, Mercy, Fear, Beauty, Victory, Majesty and Kingdom: they are ideal and stand above the concrete world.”46. Jacob ben Sheshet of Gerona (flour. 1243). He wrote a Kabbalistic Treatise in rhymed prose, entitledשער השמיםthe Gate of Heaven, after Gen. xxviii, 17 . It was first published by Gabriel Warshawer in his collection of eight Kabbalistic Essays, calledספר לקוטימ בקבלה. Warsaw, 1798. It forms the third Essay in this collection, and is erroneously entitledלקוטי שם טובthe Collection of Shem Tob. It has now been published under its proper title, from a codex by[193]Mordecai Mortera, in the Hebrew Essays and Reviews, entitledOzar Nechmad(אוצר נחמד) vol. iii, p. 153, &c. Vienna, 1860.The characteristic feature of this school, which is the creative school, is that it for the first time established and developed the doctrine ofthe En Soph(אין סוף),the Sephiroth(ספירות) orEmanations, metempsychosis (סודהעבור) with the doctrine of retribution (סוד הגמול) belonging thereto, and a peculiar christology, whilst the Kabbalistic mode of exegesis is still subordinate in it.II.—THE SCHOOL OF SEGOVIA, so called because it was founded by Jacob of Segovia, and its disciples were either natives of this place or lived in it. The chief representatives of this school are—1, Isaac, and 2, Jacob, junior, the two sons of Jacob Segovia, and 3, Moses b. Simon of Burgos, who are only known by sundry fragments preserved in Kabbalistic writings.4. Todras b. Joseph Ha-Levi Abulafia, born 1234, died circa 1305. This celebrated Kabbalist occupied a distinguished position as physician and financier in the court of Sancho IV, King of Castile, and was a great favourite of Queen Maria de Moline; he formed one of thecortégewhen this royal pair met Philip IV,the Fair, King of France in Bayonne (1290), and his advocacy of this theosophy secured for the doctrines of the Kabbalah a kindly reception. His works on the Kabbalah are—(a) An Exposition of the Talmudic Hagadoth, entitledאוצר הכבוד, (b) A Commentary on Ps. xix, and (c) A Commentary on the Pentateuch, in which he propounds the tenets of the Kabbalah. These works, however, have not as yet been printed.55. Shem Tob b. Abraham Ibn Gaon, born 1283, died circa 1332, who wrote many Kabbalistic works.6. Isaac of Akko (flour. 1290) author of the Kabbalistic[194]Commentary on the Pentateuch, entitledמאירת עיניםnot yet printed, with the exception of an extract published by Jellinek.6The characteristic of this school is that it is devoted to exegesis, and its disciples endeavoured to interpret the Bible and the Hagada in accordance with the doctrines of the Kabbalah.III.—THE QUASI-PHILOSOPHIC SCHOOL of Isaac b. Abraham Ibn-Latif, or Allatif. He was born about 1270 and died about 1390. Believing that to view Judaism from an exclusively philosophical stand-point does not shew “the right way to the sanctuary,” he endeavoured to combine philosophy with Kabbalah. “He laid greater stress than his predecessors on the close connection and intimate union between the spiritual and material world, between the Creator and the creation—God is in all and everything is in him. The human soul rises to the world-soul in earnest prayer, and unites itself therewith ‘in a kiss,’ operates upon the Deity and brings down a divine blessing upon the nether world. But as every mortal is not able to offer such a spiritual and divinely operative prayer, the prophets, who were the most perfect men, had to pray for the people, for they alone knew the power of prayer. Isaac Allatif illustrated the unfolding and self-revelation of the Deity in the world of spirits by mathematical forms. The mutual relation thereof is the same as that of the point extending and thickening into a line, the line into the flat, the flat into the expanded body. Henceforth the Kabbalists used points and lines in their mystical diagrams as much as they employed the numerals and letters of the alphabet.7IV. THE SCHOOL OF ABULAFIA, founded by Abraham ben Samuel Abulafia, is represented by—[195]1. Abulafia, the founder of it, who was born at Saragossa in 1240, and died circa 1292. For thirty years he devoted himself to the study of the Bible, the Talmud, philology, philosophy, and medicine, making himself master of the philosophical writings of Saadia, Bachja b. Joseph, Maimonides, and Antoli, as well as of the Kabbalistic works which were then in existence. Finding no comfort in philosophy, he gave himself entirely to the mysteries of the Kabbalah in their most fantastic extremes, as the ordinary doctrine ofthe Sephirothdid not satisfy him. The ordinary doctrine ofthe Sephirothhe simply regarded asa ten unityinstead of the Christianthree unity. Through divine inspiration, he discovered a higher Kabbalah, by means of which the soul can not only hold the most intimate communion with the world-soul, but obtain the prophetic faculty. The simple intercourse with the world of spirits, which is effected by separating the words of Holy Writ, and especially those of the divine name, into letters, and by regarding each letter as a distinct word (נוטריקון), or by transposing the component parts of words in every possible way to obtain thereby peculiar expressions (צירוף), or by taking the letters of each word as numerals (גמטריא), is not sufficient.To have the prophetic faculty and to see visions ought to be the chief aim, and these are secured by leading an ascetic life, by banishing all worldly feelings, by retiring into a quiet closet, by dressing oneself in white apparel, by putting on the fringed garment and the phylacteries; by sanctifying the soul so as to be fit to hold converse with the Deity; by pronouncing the letters composing the divine name with certain modulations of the voice and divine pauses; by exhibiting the divine names in various diagrams under divers energetic movements, turnings, and bendings of the body, till the voice gets confused and the heart is filled with fervour. When one has gone through these practices and is in such a condition, the fulness of the[196]Godhead is shed abroad in the human soul: the soul then unites itself with the divine soul in a kiss, and prophetic revelations follow as a matter of course.He went to Italy, published, in Urbino (1279), a prophecy, in which he records his conversations with the Deity, calling himself Raziel and Zechariah, because these names are numerically the same as his own name, Abraham,8and preached the doctrines of the Kabbalah. In 1281 he had a call from God to convert the Pope, Martin IV, to Judaism, for which he was thrown into prison, and narrowly escaped a martyr’s death by fire. Seeing that his Holiness refused to embrace the Jewishreligion, Abulafia went to Sicily, accompanied by several of his disciples. In Messina another revelation from God was vouchsafed to him, announcing to him that he was the Messiah, which he published 1284. This apocalypse also announced that the restoration of Israel would take place in 1296; and so great was the faith which the people reposed in it, that thousands prepared themselves for returning to Palestine. Those, however, who did not believe in the Messiahship and in the Kabbalah of Abulafia, raised such a violent storm of opposition against him, that he had to escape to the island of Comino, near Malta (circa1288), where he remained for some time, and wrote sundry Kabbalistic works.His Kabbalistic system may be gathered from the following analysis of his Rejoinder to R. Solomon ben Abraham ben Adereth, who attacked his doctrines and Messianic as well as prophetic pretensions. “There are,” says Abulafia, “four sources of knowledge—I, The five senses, or experimental maxims; II, Abstract numbers orà priorimaxims; III, The generally acknowledged maxims, orconsensus communis;[197]and IV, Transmitted doctrines or traditional maxims. The Kabbalistic tradition, which goes back to Moses, is divisible into two parts, the first of which is superior to the second in value, but subordinate to it in the order of study. The first part is occupied with the knowledge of the Deity, obtained by means of the doctrine ofthe Sephiroth, as propounded in theBook Jetzira. The followers of this part are related to those philosophers who strive to know God from his works, and the Deity stands before them objectively as a light beaming into their understanding. These, moreover, give tothe Sephirothsundry names to serve as signs for recognition; and some of this class differ but little from Christians, inasmuch as they substitute adecadefor thetriad, which they identify with God, and which they learned in the school of Isaac the Blind.“The second and more important part strives to know God by means of the twenty-two letters of the alphabet, from which, together with the vowel points and accents, those sundry divine names are combined, which elevate the Kabbalists to the degree of prophecy, drawing out their spirit, and causing it to be united with God and to become one with the Deity. This is gradually effected in the following manner. Theten Sephirothsublimate gradually to the upperSephira, calledthought,crown, orprimordial air, which is the root of all the otherSephiroth, and reposes in the creativeEn Soph. In the same manner all the numerals are to be traced back to one, and all the trees, together with their roots and branches, are converted into their original earth as soon as they are thrown into the fire. To theten Sephiroth, consisting of upper, middle and lower, correspond the letters of the alphabet, which are divided into three rows of ten letters each, the final letters inclusive, beginning and ending withAleph; as well as the human body, with its head, the two arms, loins, testicles, liver, heart, brain, all of which unite into a higher unity and become one in the activeνοῦς, which in its[198]turn again unites itself with God, as the unity to which everything must return.“Theten Sephirothare after a higher conception, to be traced to a higher triad, which correspond to the lettersAleph,Beth,Gimmel, and the three principles combined in man, the vital in the heart, the vegetable in the liver, and the pleasurable in the brain, and also form themselves in a higher unity. It is in this way that the Kabbalist who is initiated into thepropheticKabbalah may gradually concentrate all his powers direct to one point to God, and unite himself with the Deity, for which purpose the ideas developed in unbroken sequence, from the permutations of numbers and letters, will serve him as steps upon which to ascend to God.”9Abulafia wrote no less than twenty-six grammatical, exegetical, mystical and Kabbalistic works, and twenty-two prophetic treatises. And though these productions are of great importance to the history of the literature and development of the Kabbalah, yet only two of them, viz., the above-namedEpistle to R. Solomonand theEpistle to R. Abraham, entitledthe Seven Paths of the Law(סוע נתיבות התורה), have as yet been published.2. Joseph Gikatilla b. Abraham (flour. 1260), disciple of Abulafia. He wrote in the interests and defence of this school the following works:—i. A Kabbalistic work entitledthe Garden of Nuts(גנת אגוז), consisting of three parts, and treating respectively on the import of the divine names, on the mysteries of the Hebrew letters, and on the vowel points. It was published at Hanau, 1615. ii. The import of the vowel points entitledthe Book on Vowels(ספר הניקוד), orthe Gate to the Points(שער הניקוד), published in the collection of seven treatises, calledthe Cedars of Lebanon[199](ארזי לבנון), Venice, 1601, and Cracow, 1648, of which it is the third treatise. iii.The Mystery of the Shining Metal(סוד החשמל), being a Kabbalistic exposition of the first chapter of Ezekiel, also published in the preceding seven treatises, of which it is the fourth. iv.The Gate of Light(שער אורה), being a treatise on the names of the Deity and theten Sephiroth, first published in Mantua, 1561; then Riva de Trento, 1561; Cracow, 1600. A Latin version of it by Knorr von Rosenroth is given in the first part of theKabbalaDenudata, Sulzbach, 1677–78. v.The Gates of Righteousness(שערי צדק), on the ten divine names answering to theten Sephiroth, published at Riva de Trento, 1561. vi.Mysteries(סודות) connected with sundry Pentateuchal ordinances, published by Jechiel Ashkenazi in hisTemple of the Lord(היכל יהוה), Venice and Dantzic, 1596–1606.10From the above description it will be seen that the characteristic features of this school are the stress which its followers lay on the extensive use of the exegetical rules calledGematria(גמטריא),Notaricon(נוטריקון), andZiruph(צירוף), in the exposition of the divine names and Holy Writ, as well as in the claim to prophetic gifts. It must, however, be remarked that in this employment of commutations, permutations and reduction of each letter in every word to its numerical value, Abulafia and his followers are not original.V. THE SOHAR SCHOOL, which is a combination and absorption of the different features and doctrines of all the previous schools, without any plan or method.1236–1315. Less than a century after its birth the Kabbalah became known among Christians through the restless efforts of Raymond Lully, the celebrated scholastic metaphysician and experimental chemist. ThisDoctor illuminatus, as he was styled, in consequence of his great learning and[200]piety, was born about 1236 at Palma, in the island of Majorca. He relinquished the military service and writing erotic poetry when about thirty, and devoted himself to the study of theology. Being inspired with an ardent zeal for the conversion of the Mohammedans and the Jews to Christianity, he acquired a knowledge of Arabic and Hebrew for this purpose. In pursuing his Hebrew studies Lully became acquainted with the mysteries of the Kabbalah, and, instead of converting his Kabbalistic teachers, he embraced the doctrine of “the identity of the Deity and nature;”11and there is very little doubt that the Kabbalistic method of palming their notions on the text of Scripture, by means of theGematria,NotariconandZiruph, suggested to him the invention ofthe Great Art(Ars Magna). It is therefore not to be wondered at that he had the loftiest conception of the Kabbalah, that he regarded it as a divine science and as a genuine revelation whose light is revealed to a rational soul.12It cannot be said that Lully derived as much benefit from the Mohammedans, for after making three perilous journeys to Africa to bring the sons of Ishmael to the truth of Christianity, he was stoned to death by them, June 30, 1315.The new era in the development of the Kabbalah, created by the appearance of theSohar, has continued to the present day, for nearly all those who have since espoused the doctrines of this theosophy have made theSohartheir text-book, and the principal writers have contented themselves more or less with writing commentaries on this gigantic pseudonym.1290–1350. Foremost among these is Menahem di Recanti, who was born in Recanti (Latin Recinetum) about 1290. He wrote, when about forty years of age (1330), a commentary[201]on the Pentateuch, which is little else than a commentary on theSohar. This commentary—which was first published by Jacob b. Chajim in Bomberg’s celebrated printing establishment, Venice, 1523, then again,ibid., 1545, and in Lublin, 1595—has been translated into Latin by the famous Pico della Mirandola.131320. At the beginning of the fourteenth century Joseph b. Abraham Ibn Wakkar (flour. 1290–1340) endeavoured to reconcile this theosophy with philosophy, and to this end wrote a Treatise on the cardinal doctrines of the Kabbalah, which is regarded as one of the best if not the best introductory compendium. This production, which is unpublished, and a MS. of which exists in the Bodleian Library (Codex Land. 119; described by Uri No. 384), consists of four parts orGates, subdivided into chapters, as follows:—Gate I, which is entitled,On the views of the Kabbalists respecting the Primary Cause, blessed be he, and the Sephiroth, as well as their names and order, consists of eight chapters, treating respectively on the fundamental doctrines of the emanations of theSephirothfrom the First Cause, as transmitted from Abraham and indicated in the Bible and the Rabbinic writings inGematrias(cap. i); on the unity of theSephiroth(cap. ii); the relation of theSephirothto each other, the First Cause itself being a trinity consisting of a threefold light, the number of theSephirothbeing from 10, 20, 30 and so on up to 310, stating that there is a difference of opinion amongst the Kabbalists whether the Primary Cause is within or without theSephiroth(cap. iii); on the three worlds of theSephiroth(cap. iv); on the beginninglessness of the first and necessary first Emanation, investigating the question as to how manySephiroththis property extends (cap. v); on[202]the subordination and order of theSephirothand the diagrams, mentioning, in addition to the three known ones, the figure of bridegroom and bride under the nuptial canopy (cap. vi); on the names of the Deity and the angels derived from theSephiroth(cap. vii); on the unclean (demon)Sephirothor Hells (קליפות) and their relation to the pure ones (cap. viii).Gate II, which is entitled,On the influence of the Sephiroth on the government of the world(Providence), consists of six chapters, treating respectively on the relation of theSephirothto the fundamental characteristics of Providence, such as mercy, justice, &c. (cap. i); on the corresponding relations of the uncleanSephiroth(cap. ii); on the influence of theSephirothon men, especially on the Hebrew race, and their vicissitudes (caps. iii and iv); on the possibility of theSephirothwithholding this influence (cap. v); and on the relation of theSephirothto the days of the week (cap. vi).Gate III, which is entitled,On the names of the Sephiroth among the Kabbalists, and which is the most extensive part of the work, consists of seven chapters, treating respectively on the names of the Deity, giving the sundry explanations ofאהיה אשר אהיהcurrent among the Jewish philosophers (cap.i); on the names of theSephiroth, stating that there is no uniform principle among the Kabbalists; that the appellations are derived from the Bible, the Talmud and later literati; that the greatest difference of opinion prevails among the Kabbalists as to the mode in which these ancient sources are to be interpreted, recommending the following works as reliable guides: the Talmud, Midrash Rabboth, Siphra, Siphri, Bahir, Perakim of R. Eliezer, the opinions of Nachmanides and Todros Ha-Levi Abulafia of honoured memory, but guarding against theSohar, because “many blunders occur therein”(cap. ii); on the import of the names of theSephiroth, with examples of interpretation of the Bible and Talmud[203]to serve as aids for the student who is to prosecute the work according to these examples, mentioning three explanations of the wordSephira(cap. iii); on the divine names occurring in the Pentateuch (cap. iv); on the masculine and feminine nature of theSephiroth(cap. v); this is followed (cap. vi) by an alphabetical dictionary of the names of theSephiroth, giving under each letter the Biblical and the corresponding Talmudic appellation appropriated by the Kabbalists to theSephiroth; and (cap. vii) by an index of the names of eachSephirain alphabetical order without any explanation.Gate IV, which is entitledOn the positive proofs of the existence of the Kabbalah, describes the author’s own views of the Kabbalistic system, and submits that the Kabbalist has a preference over the philosopher and astronomer by virtue of the acknowledged maxim that he has a thorough knowledge of a thing who knows most details about it. Now the Kabbalists build their system upon the distinction of words, letters, &c., &c., in the sacred writings; and they also explain certain formularies among the Rabbins, which have undoubtedly a recondite sense.141370–1500. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the Kabbalah took deep root in Spain. Its followers, who were chiefly occupied with the study ofthe Sohar, with editing some older works, and with writing Kabbalistic commentaries on the Bible, became more and more aggressive, denouncing in unmeasured terms their co-religionists who could not see the advantages of this secret doctrine. Thus Abraham b. Isaac of Granada—who wrote (1391–1409) a Kabbalistic work entitledThe Covenant of Peace, discussing[204]the mysteries of the names of God and the angels, of permutations, commutations, the vowel points and accents—declares that he who does not acknowledge God in the manner of the Kabbalah sins unwittingly, is not regarded by God, has not his special providence, and, like the abandoned and the wicked, is left to fate.15Similar in import and tone are the writings of Shem Tob Ibn Shem Tob (died 1430). In his Treatise, entitledthe Book of Faithfulness, which is an attack on the Jewish philosophers Ibn Ezra, Maimonides, Levi b. Gershon, &c., and a defence of the Kabbalah, Shem Tob denounces the students of philosophy as heretics, and maintains that the salvation of Israel depends upon the Kabbalah. He also wrote Homilies on the Pentateuch, the Feasts and Fasts, &c., in which the Kabbalistic doctrines are fully propounded.16Moses Botarel or Botarelo, also a Spaniard, wrote at this time (1409) his commentary on the famousBook Jetzira, an analysis of which is given in the foregoing part of this Essay (vide supra, p. 147, &c.) Unlike Abraham of Granada and Shem Tob, his two contemporary champions of the Kabbalah, he praises philosophy, speaks of Aristotle as of a prophet, and maintains that philosophy and the Kabbalah propound exactly the some doctrines, and that they only differ in language and in technical terms. In this commentary, which he wrote to instruct the Christian scholar Maestro Juan in the Kabbalah, Botarel shows how, by fasting, ablutions, prayer, invocation of divine and angelic names, a man may have such dreams as shall disclose to him the secrets of the future. In confirmation of his opinions he quotes such ancient authorities as Rab Ashi, Saadia Gaon, Hai Gaon, &c., whom the Kabbalah claims as its great[205]pillars.17It is almost needless to remark that these men lived long before the birth of the Kabbalah, and that this mode of palming comparatively modern opinions upon great men of remote ages, has also been adopted by advocates of other systems who were anxious to invest their views with the halo of antiquity.As countrymen of the foregoing writers, and as exponents of the opinions of older Kabbalists, are to be mentioned—(i) Jehudah Chajath who was among the large number of Jews expelled from Spain in 1493, and who wrote a commentary on the Kabbalistic work, entitledThe Divine Order;18and (ii) Abraham Ibn Sabba, who was banished with thousands of his brethren from Lisbon, 1499, and who is the author of a very extensive commentary on the Pentateuch, entitledThe Bundle of Myrrh, in which he largely avails himself of theSoharand other earlier Kabbalistic works.191463–1494. The Kabbalah, which soon after its birth became partially known to Christians through Raymond Lully, was now accessible to Christian scholars through the exertions and influence of the famous Count John Pico di Mirandola (born in 1463). This celebrated philosopher determined to fathom the mysteries of the Kabbalah, and for this purpose put himself under the tuition of a Jew, R. Jochanan Aleman, who came to Italy from Constantinople. His extraordinary intellectual powers soon enabled Mirandola to overcome the difficulties and to unravel the secrets of this theosophy. His labours were greatly rewarded; for, according to his shewing,[206]he found that20there is more Christianity in the Kabbalah than Judaism; he discovered in it proof for the doctrine of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the divinity of Christ, original sin, the expiation thereof by Christ, the heavenly Jerusalem, the fall of the angels, the order of the angels, purgatory and hell-fire; in fact the same Gospel which we find in St. Paul, Dionysius, St. Jerome and St. Augustine. As the result of his Kabbalistic studies Mirandola published, in 1486, when only twenty-four years of age,nine hundred Theses, which were placarded in Rome, and which he undertook to defend in the presence of all European scholars, whom he invited to the eternal city, promising to defray their travelling expenses. Among theseTheseswas the following, “No science yields greater proof of the divinity of Christ than magic and the Kabbalah.”21Pope Sixtus IV (1471–1484) was so delighted with it that he greatly exerted himself to have Kabbalistic writings translated into Latin for the use of divinity students.22Mirandola accordingly translated the following three works: 1, Menahem di Recanti’s Commentary on the Pentateuch, erroneously calledR. Levide Recineto (Wolf,ibid., p. 10); 2, Eliezer of Worms’חכמת הנפשde Scientia animae; and 3, Shem Tob Falaquera’sספר המעלות1455–1522. Not only did Mirandola make the Kabbalah known to the Christians in Italy, but he was the means of introducing it into Germany through John Reuchlin, the[207]father of the German Reformation. This eminent scholar,—who is also called by the Greek nameCapnion(καπνίον), orCapnio, which is a translation of his German nameReuchlin,i.e.smoke, in accordance with the fashion of the time; just asGerard, signifyingamiable, assumed the name ofDesiderius Erasmus, andSchwartzerth, denotingblack earth, took the name ofMelanchthon,—was born at Phorzheim December 28, 1455. At the age of seventeen he was called to the court of Baden, and received among the court singers in consequence of his beautiful voice. His brilliant attainments soon attracted notice, and he was sent (1473) with the young Margrave Frederick, eldest son of Charles II, afterwards bishop of Utrecht, to the celebrated high school of Paris. Here he acquired, from Hermonymus of Sparta and other fugitive Greek literati, who went to Paris after the taking of Constantinople (1453), that remarkable knowledge of Greek which enabled him so largely to amass the Attic lore and rendered him so famous through Europe. He went to Basle in 1474, delivered lectures on the Latin language and the classics, and had among his hearers nobles of high rank both from France and Germany. He went to Tübingen in 1481, where his fame secured for him the friendship of Eberhard the Bearded, who made him his private secretary and privy councillor, and as such this prince took Reuchlin with him to Rome in 1482, where he made that splendid Latin oration before the Pope and the cardinals, which elicited from his Holiness the declaration that Reuchlin deserved to be placed among the best orators of France and Italy. From Rome Eberhard took him to Florence, and it was here that Reuchlin became acquainted with the celebrated Mirandola and with the Kabbalah. But as he was appointed licentiate and assessor of the supreme court in Stuttgard, the new residence of Eberhard, on his return in 1484, and as the order of Dominicans elected him as their proctor in the whole of Germany,[208]Reuchlin had not time to enter at once upon the study of Hebrew and Aramaic, which are the key to the Kabbalah, and he had reluctantly to wait till 1492, when he accompanied Eberhard to the imperial court at Ling. Here he became acquainted with R. Jacob b. Jechiel Loanz, a learned Hebrew, and court physician of Frederick III, from whom he learned Hebrew.23Whereupon Reuchlin at once betook himself to the study ofthe Kabbalah, and within two years of his beginning to learn the language in which it is written, his first Kabbalistic treatise, entitledDe Verbo Mirifico(Basle, 1494), appeared. This treatise is of the greatest rarity, and the following analysis of it is given by Franck. It is in the form of a dialogue between an Epicurean philosopher named Sidonius, a Jew named Baruch, and the author, who is introduced by his Greek name Capnio, and consists of three books, according to the number of speakers.Book I, the exponent of which is Baruch the Jewish Kabbalist, is occupied with a refutation of the Epicurean doctrines; and simply reproduces the arguments generally urged against this system, for which reason we omit any further description of it.Book II endeavours to shew that all wisdom and true philosophy are derived from the Hebrews, that Plato, Pythagoras and Zoroaster borrowed their ideas from the Bible, and that traces of the Hebrew language are to be found in the liturgies and sacred books of all nations. Then follows an explanation of the four divine names, which are shown to have been transplanted into the systems of Greek philosophy. The first and most distinguished of themאהיה אשר אהיהego sum qui sum( Exod. iii, 12 ), is translated in the Platonic philosophy byτὸὄντωςὢν. The second divine name, which we translate byהואHe,i.e., the sign of unchangeableness and[209]of the eternal idea of the Deity, is also to be found among the Greek philosophers in the termταυτὸν, which is opposed toθατερὸν. The third name of God used in Holy Writ isאשFire. In this form God appeared in the burning bush when he first manifested himself to Moses. The prophets describe him as a burning fire, and John the Baptist depicts him as such when he says, “I baptize you with water, but he who cometh after me shall baptize you with fire.” ( Matt. iii, 11 .) The fire of the Hebrew prophets is the same as the ether (αἰθὴρ) mentioned in the hymns of Orpheus. But these three names are in reality only one, showing to us the divine nature in three different aspects. Thus God calls himselfthe Being, because every existence emanates from him; he calls himselfFire, because it is he who illuminates and animates all things and he is alwaysHe, because he always remains like himself amidst the infinite variety of his works. Now just as there are names which express the nature of the Deity, so there are names which refer to his attributes, and these are theten Sephiroth. If we look away from every attribute and every definite point of view in which the divine subsistence may be contemplated, if we endeavour to depict the absolute Being as concentrating himself within himself, and not affording us any explicable relation to our intellect, he is then described by a name which it is forbidden to pronounce, by the thrice holy Tetragrammaton, the name Jehovah (יהוה)the Shem Ha-Mephorash(שם המפורש).There is no doubt that the tetrad (τετρακτύς) of Pythagoras is an imitation of the Hebrew Tetragrammaton, and that the worship of the decade has simply been invented in honour of theten Sephiroth. The four letters composing this name represent the four fundamental constituents of the body (i.e., heat, cold, dryness and humidity), the four geometrical principal points (i.e., the point, the line, flat and body), the four notes of the musical scale, the four rivers in the earthly[210]paradise, the four symbolical figures in the vision of Ezekiel, &c., &c., &c. Moreover if we look at these four letters separately we shall find that each of them has equally a recondite meaning. The first letterי, which also stands for the numberten, and which by its form reminds us of the mathematical point, teaches us that God is the beginning and end of all things. The numberfive, expressed byהthe second letter, shows us the union of God with nature—of God inasmuch as he is depicted by the number three,i.e., the Trinity; and of visible nature, inasmuch as it is represented by Plato and Pythagoras under the dual. The numbersix, expressed byו, the third letter, which is likewise revered in the Pythagorean school, is formed by the combination of one, two, and three, the symbol of all perfection. Moreover the numbersixis the symbol of the cube, the bodies (solida), or the world. Hence it is evident that the world has in it the imprint of divine perfection. The fourth and last letter of this divine name (ה) is like the second, represents the numberfive, and here symbolizes the human and rational soul, which is the medium between heaven and earth, just as five is the centre of the decade, the symbolic expression of the totality of things.Book III, the exponent of which is Capnio, endeavours to shew that the most essential doctrines of Christianity are to be found by the same method. Let a few instances of this method suffice. Thus the doctrine of the Trinity is to be found in the first verse of Genesis. If the Hebrew wordבראwhich is translatedcreated, be examined, and if each of the three letters composing this word be taken as the initial of a separate word, we obtain the expressionsבן רוח אבSon,Spirit,Father. Upon the same principle we find the two persons of the Trinity in the words, “the stone which the builders refused is become the heed stone of the corner” ( Ps. cxviii, 22 ), inasmuch as the three letters composing the[211]wordאבןstone, are to be divided intoאב בןFather,Son. Orpheus, in his hymn on the night, described the Trinity of the New Testament in the words,νὺξ, οὐρανὸς, αἰθὴρ, for night which begets everything can only designatethe Father; heaven, that olyphus which in its boundlessness embraces all things, and which proceeded from the night, signifiesthe Son; whilst ether, which the ancient poet also designatesfiery breath, is theHoly Ghost. The name Jesus in Hebrewי״ה״ש״ו״הtheπενταγράμματονyields the nameיהוהJehovah; and theשwhich in the language of the Kabbalah is the symbol of fire or light, which St. Jerome, in his mystical exposition of the alphabet, has made the sign of theΛόγος. This mysterious name therefore contains a whole revelation, inasmuch as it shows us that Jesus is God himself, the Light or theLogos. Even the cross, which is the symbol of Christianity, is plainly indicated in the Old Testament, by the tree of life which God planted in the midst of the garden; by the praying attitude of Moses, when he raised his hands towards heaven in his intercession for Israel during the combat with Amalek; and by the tree which converted the bitter waters into sweet in the wilderness of Marah.24The Treatisede Verbo Mirificois, however, only an introduction to another work on the same subject which Reuchlin published twenty-two years later, entitledDe Arte Cabalistica. Hagenau, 1516. This Treatise, like the first, is in the form of a dialogue between a Mohammedan named Marrianus, a Pythagorean Philosopher named Philolaus, and a Jewish doctor named Simon. The dialogue is held in Frankfort, where the Jew resides, to whom the Mohammedan and Pythagorean resort to be initiated into the mysteries of the Kabbalah. The whole is a more matured exposition and elaboration of the ideas hinted at in his first work.[212]The Kabbalah, according to Reuchlin, is a symbolical reception of Divine revelation; and a distinction is to be made betweenCabalici, to whom belongs heavenly inspiration, their disciplesCabalaai, and their imitatorsCabalistae. The design of the Kabbalah is to propound the relations of the absolute Creator to the creature. God is the Creator of all beings which emanated from him, and he implanted aspirations in them to attain actual communion with him. In order that feeble man might attain this communion, God revealed himself to mankind in various ways, but especially to Moses. This Divine revelation to Moses contains far more than appears on the surface of the Pentateuch. There is a recondite wisdom concealed in it which distinguishes it from other codes of morals and precepts. There are in the Pentateuch many pleonasms and repetitions of the same things and words, and as we cannot charge God with having inserted useless and superfluous words in the Holy Scriptures, we must believe that something more profound is contained in them, to which the Kabbalah gives the key.This key consists in permutations, commutations, &c., &c. But this act of exchanging and arranging letters, and of interpreting for the edification of the soul the Holy Scriptures, which we have received from God as a divine thing not to be understood by the multitude, was not communicated by Moses to everybody, but to the elect, such as Joshua, and so by tradition it came to the seventy interpreters. This gift is calledKabbalah. God, out of love to his people, has revealed hidden mysteries to some of them, and these have found the living spirit in the dead letter; that is to say, the Scriptures consist of separate letters, visible signs which stand in a certain relation to the angels as celestial and spiritual emanations from God; and by pronouncing them, the latter also are affected. To a true Kabbalist, who has an insight into the whole connection of the terrestrial with the celestial, these[213]signs thus put together are the means of placing him in close union with spirits, who are thereby bound to fulfil his wishes.25The extraordinary influence which Reuchlin’s Kabbalistic Treatises exercised upon the greatest thinkers of the time and upon the early reformers may be judged of from the unmeasured terms of praise which they bestowed upon their author. The Treatises were regarded as heavenly communications, revealing new divine wisdom. Conrad Leontarius, writing to Wimpheling on the subject, says—“I never saw anything more beautiful or admirable than this work (i.e.,De Verbo Mirifico), which easily convinces him who reads it that no philosopher, whether Jew or Christian, is superior to Reuchlin.” Aegidius, general of the Eremites, wrote to the holy Augustine “that Reuchlin had rendered him, as well as the rest of mankind, happy by his works, which had made known to all a thing hitherto unheard of.” Philip Beroaldus, the younger, sent him word “that Pope Leo X had read his Pythagorean book greedily, as he did all good books; afterwards the Cardinal de Medici had done so, and he himself should soon enjoy it.”26Such was the interest which this newly-revealed Kabbalah created among Christians, that not only learned men but statesmen and warriors began to study the oriental languages, in order to be able to fathom the mysteries of this theosophy.1450–1498. Whilst the Kabbalah was gaining such high favour amongst Christians both in Italy and Germany, through the exertions of Mirandola and Reuchlin, a powerful voice was raised among the Jews againstthe Sohar, the very Bible of this theosophy. Elia del Medigo, born at Candia, then in Venetia, 1450, of a German literary family, professor of[214]philosophy in the University of Padua, teacher of Pico de Mirandola, and a scholar of the highest reputation both among his Jewish brethren and among Christians, impugned the authority ofthe Sohar. In his philosophical Treatise on the nature of Judaism as a harmonizer between religion and philosophy, entitledAn Examination of the Law(בחינת הדת), which he wrote December 29, 1491, he puts into the mouth of an antagonist to the Kabbalah the following three arguments against the genuineness of theSohar: 1, Neither the Talmud, nor the Gaonim and Rabbins knew anything of theSoharor of its doctrines; 2, TheSoharwas published at a very late period; and 3, Many anachronisms occur in it, inasmuch as it describes later Amoraic authorities as having direct intercourse with the Tanaite R. Simon b. Jochai who belongs to an earlier period.271522–1570. The voice of Elia del Medigo and others, however, had no power to check the rapid progress of the Kabbalah, which had now found its way from Spain and Italy into Palestine and Poland, and penetrated all branches of life and literature. Passing over the host of minor advocates and teachers, we shall mention the two great masters in Palestine, who formed two distinct schools, distinguished by the prominence which they respectively gave to certain doctrines of the Kabbalah. The first of these is Moses Cordovero, also calledRemak=רמ׳קfrom the acrostic of his nameקורדואירוR. Moses Cordovero. He was born in Cordova, 1522, studied the Kabbalah under his learned brother-in-law, Solomon Aleavez, and very soon became so distinguished as a Kabbalist and author that his fame travelled to Italy, where his works were greedily bought. His principal works are: 1, An Introduction to the Kabbalah, entitledA SombreorSweet[215]Light(אור נערב) first published in Venice, 1587, then in Cracow, 1647, and in Fürth, 1701; 2, Kabbalistic reflections and comments on ninety-nine passages of the Bible, entitledThe Book of Retirement(ספר נרושין), published in Venice, 1543; and 3, A large Kabbalistic work entitledThe Garden of Pomegranates(פרדס רמונים), which consists of thirteen sections or gates (שערים) subdivided into chapters, and discussesthe Sephiroth, the Divine names, the import and significance of the letters, &c., &c. It was first published in Cracow, 1591. Excerpts of it have been translated into Latin by Bartolocci,Bibliotheca Magna Rabbinica, vol. iv, p. 231, &c., and Knorr von Rosenroth,Tractatus de Anima ex libro Pardes Rimmonimin hisKabbalaDenudata, Sulzbach, 1677.28The peculiar feature of Cordovero is that he is chiefly occupied with the scientific speculations of the Kabbalah, orthe speculative Kabbalah(קבלה עיונית), as it is called in the modern terminology of this esoteric doctrine, in contra-distinction tothe wonder-working Kabbalah(קבלה מעשית), keeping aloof to a great extent from the extravagances which we shall soon have to notice. In this respect therefore he represents the Kabbalah in its primitive state, as may be seen from the following specimen of his lucubrations on the nature of the Deity. “The knowledge of the Creator is different from that of the creature, since in the case of the latter, knowledge and the thing known are distinct, thus leading to subjects which are again separate from him. This is described by the three expressions—cogitation, the cogitator and the cogitated object. Now the Creator is himself knowledge, knowing and the known object. His knowledge does not consist in the fact that he directs his thoughts to things[216]without him, since in comprehending and knowing himself, he comprehends and knows everything which exists. There is nothing which is not united with him, and which he does not find in his own substance. He is the archetype of all things existing, and all things are in him in their purest and most perfect form; so that the perfection of the creatures consists in the support whereby they are united to the primary source of his existence, and they sink down and fall from that perfect and lofty position in proportion to their separation from him.”291534–1572. The opposite to this school is the one founded by Isaac Luria or Loria, also calledAri=אר״יfrom the initials of his nameהאשכנזי ר׳ יצחקR. Isaac Ashkanazi. He was born at Jerusalem 1534, and, having lost his father when very young, was taken by his mother to Kahira, where he was put by his rich uncle under the tuition of the best Jewish master. Up to his twenty-second year he was a diligent student of the Talmud and the Rabbinic lore, and distinguished himself in these departments of learning in a most remarkable manner. He then lived in retirement for about seven years to give free scope to his thoughts and meditations, but he soon found that simple retirement from collegiate studies did not satisfy him. He therefore removed to the banks of the Nile, where he lived in a sequestered cottage for several years, giving himself up entirely to meditations and reveries. Here he had constant interviews with the prophet Elias, who communicated to him sublime doctrines. Here, too, his soul ascended to heaven whenever he was asleep, and in the celestial regions held converse with the souls of the great teachers of bygone days. When thirty-six years of age (1570) the Prophet Elias appeared to him again and told him to go to Palestine, where his successor was awaiting him. Obedient to the command, he went to Safet, where he gathered[217]round him ten disciples, visited the sepulchres of ancient teachers, and there, by prostrations and prayers, obtained from their spirits all manner of revelations, so much so that he was convinced he was the Messiah b. Joseph and that he was able to perform all sorts of miracles. It was this part of the Kabbalah,i.e., the ascetic and miraculous (כבלה מעשית), which Loria taught. His sentiments he delivered orally, as he himself did not write anything, except perhaps some marginal notes of a critical import in older books and MSS. His disciples treasured up his marvellous sayings, whereby they performed miracles and converted thousands to the doctrines of this theosophy.1543–1620. The real exponent of Loria’s Kabbalistic system is his celebrated disciple Chajim Vital, a descendant of a Calabrian family, who died in 1620 at the age of seventy-seven. After the demise of his teacher, Chajim Vital diligently collected all the MS. notes of the lectures which Loria’s disciples had written down, from which, together with his own jottings, he produced the gigantic and famous system of the Kabbalah, entitledthe Tree of Life(עץ החיים). This work, over which Vital laboured thirty years, was at first circulated in MS. copies, and every one of the Kabbalistic disciples had to pledge himself, under pain of excommunication, not to allow a copy to be made for a foreign land; so that for a time all the Codd. remained in Palestine. At last, however, this Thesaurus of the Kabbalah, which properly consists of six works, was published by J. Satanow at Zolkiev, 1772. New editions of it appeared in Korez, 1785; Sklow, 1800; Dobrowne, 1804; Stilikow, 1818; and Knorr von Rosenroth has translated into Latin a portion of that part of the great work which treats onthe doctrine of the metempsychosis(הגלגולים).301558–1560. The circulation of Loria’s work which gave[218]an extraordinary impetus to the Kabbalah, and which gave rise to the new school and a separate congregation in Palestine, was not the only favourable circumstance which had arisen to advance and promulgate the esoteric doctrine. TheSohar, which since its birth had been circulated in MS., was now for the first time printed in Mantua, and thousands of people who had hitherto been unable to procure the MS. were thus enabled to possess themselves of copies.31It is, however, evident that with the increased circulation of these two Bibles of the Kabbalah, as theSoharand Loria’sEtz Chajimare called, there was an increased cry on the part of learned Jews against the doctrines propounded in them. Isaac b. Immanuel de Lates, the Rabbi of Pesaro, and the great champion for the Kabbalah, who prefixed a commendatory epistle to theSohar, tells us most distinctly that some Rabbins wanted to prevent the publication of theSohar, urging that it ought to be kept secret or be burned, because it tends to heretical doctrines.321571–1648. Of the numerous opponents to the Kabbalah which theSoharand Loria’s work called forth, Leo de Modena was by far the most daring, the most outspoken and the most powerful. This eminent scholar who is known to the Christian world by his celebratedHistory of the Rites, Customs and Manners of the Jews, which was originally written in Italian, published in Padua, 1640, and which has been translated into Latin, English, French, Dutch, &c., attacked the Kabbalah in two of his works. His first onslaught is on the doctrine of metempsychosis in his Treatise entitledBen David. He composed this Treatise in 1635–36, at the request of David Finzi, of Egypt, and he demonstrates therein that this doctrine[219]is of Gentile origin, and was rejected by the great men of the Jewish faith in bygone days, refuting at the same time the philosophico-theological arguments advanced in its favour.33It is, however, his second attack on this esoteric doctrine, in his work entitledThe Roaring Lion(ארי נוהם), which is so damaging to the Kabbalah. In this Treatise—which Leo de Modena composed in 1639, at the advanced age of sixty-eight, to reclaim Joseph Chamiz, a beloved disciple of his, who was an ardent follower of the Kabbalah—he shows that the books which propound this esoteric doctrine, and which are palmed upon ancient authorities, are pseudonymous; that the doctrines themselves are mischievous; and that the followers of this system are inflated with proud notions, pretending to know the nature of God better than anyone else, and to possess the nearest and best way of approaching the Deity.341623. The celebrated Hebraist, Joseph Solomon del Medigo (born 1591, died 1637), a contemporary of the preceding writer, also employed his vast stores of erudition to expose this system. Having been asked by R. Serach for his views of the Kabbalah, del Medigo, in a masterly letter, written in 1623, shows up the folly of this esoteric doctrine, and the unreasonableness of the exegetical rules, whereby the followers of this system pretend to deduce it from the Bible.351635. We have seen that the information about the Kabbalah, which Mirandola and Reuchlin imparted to Christians, was chiefly derived from the writings of Recanti and Gikatilla. Now that theSoharhad been published, Joseph de Voisin[220]determined to be the first to make some portions of it accessible to those Christian readers who did not understand the Aramaic in which this Thesaurus is written. Accordingly he translated some extracts of theSoharwhich treat of the nature of the human soul.361652–1654. Just at the very time when some of the most distinguished Jews exposed the pretensions of the Kabbalah, and denounced the fanciful and unjustifiable rules of interpretation whereby its advocates tried to evolve it from the letters of the revealed law, the celebrated Athanasius Kircher, in a most learned and elaborate treatise on this subject, maintained that the Kabbalah was introduced into Egypt by no less a person than the patriarch Abraham; and that from Egypt it gradually issued all over the East, and intermixed with all religions and systems of philosophy. What is still more extraordinary is that this learned Jesuit, in thus exalting the Kabbalah, lays the greatest stress on that part of it which developed itself afterwards, viz., the combinations, transpositions and permutations of the letters, and does not discriminate between it and the speculations about theEn Soph,the Sephiroth, &c., which were the original characteristics of this theosophy.37The amount of Eastern lore, however, which Kircher has amassed in his work will always remain a noble monument to the extensive learning of this Jesuit.1645–1676. The wonder-working or practical branch of the Kabbalah (קבלה מעשית), as it is called, so elaborately propounded and defended by Kircher, which consists in the transpositions of the letters of the sundry divine names, &c., and which as we have seen constituted no part of the original Kabbalah, had now largely laid hold on the minds and fancies[221]of both Jews and Christians, and was producing among the former the most mournful and calamitous effects. The famous Kabbalist, Sabbatai Zevi, who was born in Smyrna, July, 1641, was the chief actor in this tragedy. When a child he was sent to a Rabbinic school, and instructed in the Law, the Mishna, the Talmud, the Midrashim, and the whole cycle of Rabbinic lore. So great were his intellectual powers, and so vast the knowledge he acquired, that when fifteen he betook himself to the study of the Kabbalah, rapidly mastered its mysteries, became peerless in his knowledge of “those things which were revealed and those things which were hidden;” and at the age of eighteen obtained the honourable appellationsage(חכם), and delivered public lectures, expounding the divine law and the esoteric doctrine before crowded audiences. At the age of twenty-four he gave himself out as the Messiah, the Son of David, and the Redeemer of Israel, pronouncing publicly the Tetragrammaton, which was only allowed to the high priests during the existence of the second Temple. Though the Jewish sages of Smyrna excommunicated him for it, he travelled to Salonica, Athens, Morea and Jerusalem, teaching the Kabbalah, proclaiming himself as the Messiah, anointing prophets and converting thousands upon thousands. So numerous were the believers in him, that in many places trade was entirely stopped; the Jews wound up their affairs, disposed of their chattels and made themselves ready to be redeemed from their captivity and led by Sabbatai Zevi back to Jerusalem. The consuls of Europe were ordered to enquire into this extraordinary movement, and the governors of the East reported to the Sultan the cessation of commerce. Sabbatai Zevi was then arrested by order of the Sultan, Mohammed IV, and taken before him at Adrianople. The Sultan spoke to him as follows—“I am going to test thy Messiahship. Three poisoned arrows shall be shot into thee, and if they do not kill thee, I too will believe that thou art the[222]Messiah.” He saved himself by embracing Islamism in the presence of the Sultan, who gave him the nameEffendi, and appointed himKapidgi Bashi. Thus ended the career of the Kabbalist Sabbatai Zevi, after having ruined thousands upon thousands of Jewish families.381677–1684. Whether the learned Knorr Baron von Rosenroth knew of the extravagances of Sabbatai Zevi or not is difficult to say. At all events this accomplished Christian scholar believed that Simon b. Jochai was the author of theSohar, that he wrote it under divine inspiration, and that it is most essential to the elucidation of the doctrines of Christianity. With this conviction he determined to master the difficulties connected with the Kabbalistic writings, in order to render the principal works of this esoteric doctrine accessible to his Christian brethren. For, although Lully, Mirandola, Reuchlin and Kircher had already done much to acquaint the Christian world with the secrets of the Kabbalah, none of these scholars had given translations of any portions of theSohar.Knorr Baron von Rosenroth, therefore put himself under the tuition of R. Meier Stern, a learned Jew, and with his assistance was enabled to publish the celebrated work entitled theUnveiled Kabbalah(Kabbala Denudata), in two large volumes, the first of which was printed at Sulzbach, 1677–78, and the second at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, 1684, giving a Latin translation of the Introduction to and the following portion of theSohar—theBook of Mysteries(ספר דצניעותא); theGreat Assembly(אדרא רבא); theSmall Assembly(אדרא זוטא); Joseph Gikatilla’sGate of Light(שער אורה); theDoctrine of Metempsychosis(הגלגולים), and theTree of Life(עץ חיים), of Chajim Vital; theGarden of Pomegranates(פרדס רימונים), of Moses Cordovero; theHouse of the Lord(בית אלהים), and theGate of Heaven(שער השמים), of[223]Abraham Herera; theValley of the King(עמק המלך), of Naphtah b. Jacob; theVision of the Priest(מראה כהן), of Issachar Beer b. Naphtali Cohen, &c., &c., with elaborate annotations, glossaries and indices. The only drawback to this gigantic work is that it is without any system, and that it mixes up in one all the earlier developments of the Kabbalah with the later productions. Still the criticism passed upon it by Buddeus, that it is a “confused and obscure work, in which the necessary and the unnecessary, the useful and the useless are mixed up and thrown together as it were into one chaos,”39is rather too severe; and it must be remembered that if theKabbala Denudatadoes not exhibit a regular system of this esoteric doctrine, it furnishes much material for it. Baron von Rosenroth has also collected all the passages of the New Testament which contain similar doctrines to those propounded by the Kabbalah.
It now remains for us to describe the development of the Kabbalah, to point out the different schools into which its followers are divided, and to detail the literature which this theosophy called into existence in the course of time. The limits of this Essay demand that this should be done as briefly as possible.The great land mark in the development of the Kabbalah is the birth ofthe Sohar, which divides the history of this theosophy into two periods, viz., the pre-Soharperiod and the post-Soharperiod. During these two periods different schools developed themselves, which are classified by the erudite historian, Dr. Graetz, as follows:—1I.—THE SCHOOL OF GERONA, so called from the fact that the founders of it were born in this place and established the school in it. To this school, which is the cradle of the Kabbalah, belong1. Isaac the Blind (flour. 1190–1210), denominated the Father of the Kabbalah. His productions have become a prey to time, and only a few fragments have survived as quotations in other theosophic works. From these we learn that he espoused the despised doctrine of metempsychosis as an article of creed, and that from looking into a man’s face, he could tell whether the individual possessed a new soul from the celestial world of spirits, or whether he had an old soul which has been migrating from body to body and has still to accomplish its purity before its return to rest in its heavenly home.[190]2. Azariel and Ezra, disciples of Isaac the Blind. The former of these is the author of the celebratedCommentary on the Ten Sephiroth, which is the first Kabbalistic production, and of which we have given an analysis in the second part of this Essay (vide supra, p. 176). Of Ezra next to nothing is known beyond the fact that his great intimacy with Azariel led some writers to identify the two names.3. Jehudah b. Jakar, a contemporary of the foregoing Kabbalists. No works of his have survived, and he is only known as the teacher of the celebrated Nachmanides and from being quoted as a Kabbalistic authority.4. Moses Nachmanides, born in Gerona about 1195, the pupil of Azariel, Ezra, and Jehudah Ibn Jakar. It was the conversion of this remarkable and famous Talmudist to this newly-born Kabbalah which gave to it an extraordinary importance and rapid spread amongst the numerous followers of Nachmanides. It is related that, notwithstanding all the efforts of his teachers, Nachmanides at first was decidedly adverse to this system; and that one day the Kabbalist who most exerted himself to convert him was caught in a house of ill fame and condemned to death. He requested Nachmanides to visit him on the Sabbath, being the day fixed for his execution; and when Nachmanides reproved him for his sins, the Kabbalist declared that he was innocent, and that he would appear at his house on this very day, after the execution, and partake with him the Sabbath meal. He proved true to his promise, as by means of the Kabbalistic mysteries he effected that, and an ass was executed in his stead, and he himself was suddenly transposed into Nachmanides’ house. From that time Nachmanides avowed himself a disciple of the Kabbalah, and was initiated into its mysteries.2His numerous writings, an account of which will be found in Alexander’s edition of[191]Kitto’s Cyclopædia, underNachmanides, are pervaded with the tenets of this system. In the Introduction to his Commentary on the Pentateuch he remarks—“We possess a faithful tradition that the whole Pentateuch consists of names of the Holy One, blessed be he; for the words may be divided into sacred names in another sense, so that it is to be taken as an allegory. Thus the words—בראשית ברא אלהיםin Gen. i, 1 , may be redivided into other words,ex. gr.בראש יתברא אלהים.In like manner is the whole Pentateuch, which consists of nothing but transpositions and numerals of divine names.”35. TheTreatise on the Emanations(מסכת אצילות), supposed to have been written by R. Isaac Nasir in the first half of the twelfth century. The following is an analysis of this production. Based upon the passage—“Jaresiah and Eliah and Zichri, the sons of Jeroham” ( 1 Chron. viii, 27 ), which names theMidrashassigns to the prophet Eliah (Shemoth Rabba, cap. xl), this prophet is introduced as speaking and teaching under the four names of Eliah b. Josep, Jaresiah b. Joseph, Zechariah b. Joseph and Jeroham b. Joseph. Having stated that the secret and profounder views of the Deity are only to be communicated to the God-fearing, and that none but the pre-eminently pious can enter into the temple of this higher gnosis, the prophet Elias propounds the system of this secret doctrine, which consists in the following maxims—“I. God at first created light and darkness, the one for the pious and the other for the wicked, darkness having come to pass by the divine limitation of light. II. God produced and destroyed sundry worlds, which, like ten trees planted upon a narrow space, contend about the sap of the soil, and finally perish altogether. III. God manifested himself in four worlds,[192]viz.—Atzilah,Beriah,JetziraandAsiah, corresponding to the Tetragrammatonיהוה. In theAtzilatic luminous worldis the divine majesty, the Shechinah. In theBriatic worldare the souls of the saints, all the blessings, the throne of the Deity, he who sits on it in the form of Achtenal (the crown of God, the firstSephira), and the seven different luminous and splendid regions. In theJetziraticworld are the sacred animals from the vision of Ezekiel, the ten classes of angels with their princes, who are presided over by the fiery Metatron, the spirits of men, and the accessory work of the divine chariot. In theAssiaticworld are the Ophanim, the angels who receive the prayers, who are appointed over the will of man, who control the action of mortals, who carry on the struggle against evil, and who are presided over by the angelic prince Synandelphon. IV. The world was founded in wisdom and understanding ( Prov. iii, 19 ), and God in his knowledge originated fifty gates of understanding. V. God created the world by means of theten Sephiroth, which are both the agencies and qualities of the Deity. Theten Sephirothare called Crown, Wisdom, Intelligence, Mercy, Fear, Beauty, Victory, Majesty and Kingdom: they are ideal and stand above the concrete world.”46. Jacob ben Sheshet of Gerona (flour. 1243). He wrote a Kabbalistic Treatise in rhymed prose, entitledשער השמיםthe Gate of Heaven, after Gen. xxviii, 17 . It was first published by Gabriel Warshawer in his collection of eight Kabbalistic Essays, calledספר לקוטימ בקבלה. Warsaw, 1798. It forms the third Essay in this collection, and is erroneously entitledלקוטי שם טובthe Collection of Shem Tob. It has now been published under its proper title, from a codex by[193]Mordecai Mortera, in the Hebrew Essays and Reviews, entitledOzar Nechmad(אוצר נחמד) vol. iii, p. 153, &c. Vienna, 1860.The characteristic feature of this school, which is the creative school, is that it for the first time established and developed the doctrine ofthe En Soph(אין סוף),the Sephiroth(ספירות) orEmanations, metempsychosis (סודהעבור) with the doctrine of retribution (סוד הגמול) belonging thereto, and a peculiar christology, whilst the Kabbalistic mode of exegesis is still subordinate in it.II.—THE SCHOOL OF SEGOVIA, so called because it was founded by Jacob of Segovia, and its disciples were either natives of this place or lived in it. The chief representatives of this school are—1, Isaac, and 2, Jacob, junior, the two sons of Jacob Segovia, and 3, Moses b. Simon of Burgos, who are only known by sundry fragments preserved in Kabbalistic writings.4. Todras b. Joseph Ha-Levi Abulafia, born 1234, died circa 1305. This celebrated Kabbalist occupied a distinguished position as physician and financier in the court of Sancho IV, King of Castile, and was a great favourite of Queen Maria de Moline; he formed one of thecortégewhen this royal pair met Philip IV,the Fair, King of France in Bayonne (1290), and his advocacy of this theosophy secured for the doctrines of the Kabbalah a kindly reception. His works on the Kabbalah are—(a) An Exposition of the Talmudic Hagadoth, entitledאוצר הכבוד, (b) A Commentary on Ps. xix, and (c) A Commentary on the Pentateuch, in which he propounds the tenets of the Kabbalah. These works, however, have not as yet been printed.55. Shem Tob b. Abraham Ibn Gaon, born 1283, died circa 1332, who wrote many Kabbalistic works.6. Isaac of Akko (flour. 1290) author of the Kabbalistic[194]Commentary on the Pentateuch, entitledמאירת עיניםnot yet printed, with the exception of an extract published by Jellinek.6The characteristic of this school is that it is devoted to exegesis, and its disciples endeavoured to interpret the Bible and the Hagada in accordance with the doctrines of the Kabbalah.III.—THE QUASI-PHILOSOPHIC SCHOOL of Isaac b. Abraham Ibn-Latif, or Allatif. He was born about 1270 and died about 1390. Believing that to view Judaism from an exclusively philosophical stand-point does not shew “the right way to the sanctuary,” he endeavoured to combine philosophy with Kabbalah. “He laid greater stress than his predecessors on the close connection and intimate union between the spiritual and material world, between the Creator and the creation—God is in all and everything is in him. The human soul rises to the world-soul in earnest prayer, and unites itself therewith ‘in a kiss,’ operates upon the Deity and brings down a divine blessing upon the nether world. But as every mortal is not able to offer such a spiritual and divinely operative prayer, the prophets, who were the most perfect men, had to pray for the people, for they alone knew the power of prayer. Isaac Allatif illustrated the unfolding and self-revelation of the Deity in the world of spirits by mathematical forms. The mutual relation thereof is the same as that of the point extending and thickening into a line, the line into the flat, the flat into the expanded body. Henceforth the Kabbalists used points and lines in their mystical diagrams as much as they employed the numerals and letters of the alphabet.7IV. THE SCHOOL OF ABULAFIA, founded by Abraham ben Samuel Abulafia, is represented by—[195]1. Abulafia, the founder of it, who was born at Saragossa in 1240, and died circa 1292. For thirty years he devoted himself to the study of the Bible, the Talmud, philology, philosophy, and medicine, making himself master of the philosophical writings of Saadia, Bachja b. Joseph, Maimonides, and Antoli, as well as of the Kabbalistic works which were then in existence. Finding no comfort in philosophy, he gave himself entirely to the mysteries of the Kabbalah in their most fantastic extremes, as the ordinary doctrine ofthe Sephirothdid not satisfy him. The ordinary doctrine ofthe Sephirothhe simply regarded asa ten unityinstead of the Christianthree unity. Through divine inspiration, he discovered a higher Kabbalah, by means of which the soul can not only hold the most intimate communion with the world-soul, but obtain the prophetic faculty. The simple intercourse with the world of spirits, which is effected by separating the words of Holy Writ, and especially those of the divine name, into letters, and by regarding each letter as a distinct word (נוטריקון), or by transposing the component parts of words in every possible way to obtain thereby peculiar expressions (צירוף), or by taking the letters of each word as numerals (גמטריא), is not sufficient.To have the prophetic faculty and to see visions ought to be the chief aim, and these are secured by leading an ascetic life, by banishing all worldly feelings, by retiring into a quiet closet, by dressing oneself in white apparel, by putting on the fringed garment and the phylacteries; by sanctifying the soul so as to be fit to hold converse with the Deity; by pronouncing the letters composing the divine name with certain modulations of the voice and divine pauses; by exhibiting the divine names in various diagrams under divers energetic movements, turnings, and bendings of the body, till the voice gets confused and the heart is filled with fervour. When one has gone through these practices and is in such a condition, the fulness of the[196]Godhead is shed abroad in the human soul: the soul then unites itself with the divine soul in a kiss, and prophetic revelations follow as a matter of course.He went to Italy, published, in Urbino (1279), a prophecy, in which he records his conversations with the Deity, calling himself Raziel and Zechariah, because these names are numerically the same as his own name, Abraham,8and preached the doctrines of the Kabbalah. In 1281 he had a call from God to convert the Pope, Martin IV, to Judaism, for which he was thrown into prison, and narrowly escaped a martyr’s death by fire. Seeing that his Holiness refused to embrace the Jewishreligion, Abulafia went to Sicily, accompanied by several of his disciples. In Messina another revelation from God was vouchsafed to him, announcing to him that he was the Messiah, which he published 1284. This apocalypse also announced that the restoration of Israel would take place in 1296; and so great was the faith which the people reposed in it, that thousands prepared themselves for returning to Palestine. Those, however, who did not believe in the Messiahship and in the Kabbalah of Abulafia, raised such a violent storm of opposition against him, that he had to escape to the island of Comino, near Malta (circa1288), where he remained for some time, and wrote sundry Kabbalistic works.His Kabbalistic system may be gathered from the following analysis of his Rejoinder to R. Solomon ben Abraham ben Adereth, who attacked his doctrines and Messianic as well as prophetic pretensions. “There are,” says Abulafia, “four sources of knowledge—I, The five senses, or experimental maxims; II, Abstract numbers orà priorimaxims; III, The generally acknowledged maxims, orconsensus communis;[197]and IV, Transmitted doctrines or traditional maxims. The Kabbalistic tradition, which goes back to Moses, is divisible into two parts, the first of which is superior to the second in value, but subordinate to it in the order of study. The first part is occupied with the knowledge of the Deity, obtained by means of the doctrine ofthe Sephiroth, as propounded in theBook Jetzira. The followers of this part are related to those philosophers who strive to know God from his works, and the Deity stands before them objectively as a light beaming into their understanding. These, moreover, give tothe Sephirothsundry names to serve as signs for recognition; and some of this class differ but little from Christians, inasmuch as they substitute adecadefor thetriad, which they identify with God, and which they learned in the school of Isaac the Blind.“The second and more important part strives to know God by means of the twenty-two letters of the alphabet, from which, together with the vowel points and accents, those sundry divine names are combined, which elevate the Kabbalists to the degree of prophecy, drawing out their spirit, and causing it to be united with God and to become one with the Deity. This is gradually effected in the following manner. Theten Sephirothsublimate gradually to the upperSephira, calledthought,crown, orprimordial air, which is the root of all the otherSephiroth, and reposes in the creativeEn Soph. In the same manner all the numerals are to be traced back to one, and all the trees, together with their roots and branches, are converted into their original earth as soon as they are thrown into the fire. To theten Sephiroth, consisting of upper, middle and lower, correspond the letters of the alphabet, which are divided into three rows of ten letters each, the final letters inclusive, beginning and ending withAleph; as well as the human body, with its head, the two arms, loins, testicles, liver, heart, brain, all of which unite into a higher unity and become one in the activeνοῦς, which in its[198]turn again unites itself with God, as the unity to which everything must return.“Theten Sephirothare after a higher conception, to be traced to a higher triad, which correspond to the lettersAleph,Beth,Gimmel, and the three principles combined in man, the vital in the heart, the vegetable in the liver, and the pleasurable in the brain, and also form themselves in a higher unity. It is in this way that the Kabbalist who is initiated into thepropheticKabbalah may gradually concentrate all his powers direct to one point to God, and unite himself with the Deity, for which purpose the ideas developed in unbroken sequence, from the permutations of numbers and letters, will serve him as steps upon which to ascend to God.”9Abulafia wrote no less than twenty-six grammatical, exegetical, mystical and Kabbalistic works, and twenty-two prophetic treatises. And though these productions are of great importance to the history of the literature and development of the Kabbalah, yet only two of them, viz., the above-namedEpistle to R. Solomonand theEpistle to R. Abraham, entitledthe Seven Paths of the Law(סוע נתיבות התורה), have as yet been published.2. Joseph Gikatilla b. Abraham (flour. 1260), disciple of Abulafia. He wrote in the interests and defence of this school the following works:—i. A Kabbalistic work entitledthe Garden of Nuts(גנת אגוז), consisting of three parts, and treating respectively on the import of the divine names, on the mysteries of the Hebrew letters, and on the vowel points. It was published at Hanau, 1615. ii. The import of the vowel points entitledthe Book on Vowels(ספר הניקוד), orthe Gate to the Points(שער הניקוד), published in the collection of seven treatises, calledthe Cedars of Lebanon[199](ארזי לבנון), Venice, 1601, and Cracow, 1648, of which it is the third treatise. iii.The Mystery of the Shining Metal(סוד החשמל), being a Kabbalistic exposition of the first chapter of Ezekiel, also published in the preceding seven treatises, of which it is the fourth. iv.The Gate of Light(שער אורה), being a treatise on the names of the Deity and theten Sephiroth, first published in Mantua, 1561; then Riva de Trento, 1561; Cracow, 1600. A Latin version of it by Knorr von Rosenroth is given in the first part of theKabbalaDenudata, Sulzbach, 1677–78. v.The Gates of Righteousness(שערי צדק), on the ten divine names answering to theten Sephiroth, published at Riva de Trento, 1561. vi.Mysteries(סודות) connected with sundry Pentateuchal ordinances, published by Jechiel Ashkenazi in hisTemple of the Lord(היכל יהוה), Venice and Dantzic, 1596–1606.10From the above description it will be seen that the characteristic features of this school are the stress which its followers lay on the extensive use of the exegetical rules calledGematria(גמטריא),Notaricon(נוטריקון), andZiruph(צירוף), in the exposition of the divine names and Holy Writ, as well as in the claim to prophetic gifts. It must, however, be remarked that in this employment of commutations, permutations and reduction of each letter in every word to its numerical value, Abulafia and his followers are not original.V. THE SOHAR SCHOOL, which is a combination and absorption of the different features and doctrines of all the previous schools, without any plan or method.1236–1315. Less than a century after its birth the Kabbalah became known among Christians through the restless efforts of Raymond Lully, the celebrated scholastic metaphysician and experimental chemist. ThisDoctor illuminatus, as he was styled, in consequence of his great learning and[200]piety, was born about 1236 at Palma, in the island of Majorca. He relinquished the military service and writing erotic poetry when about thirty, and devoted himself to the study of theology. Being inspired with an ardent zeal for the conversion of the Mohammedans and the Jews to Christianity, he acquired a knowledge of Arabic and Hebrew for this purpose. In pursuing his Hebrew studies Lully became acquainted with the mysteries of the Kabbalah, and, instead of converting his Kabbalistic teachers, he embraced the doctrine of “the identity of the Deity and nature;”11and there is very little doubt that the Kabbalistic method of palming their notions on the text of Scripture, by means of theGematria,NotariconandZiruph, suggested to him the invention ofthe Great Art(Ars Magna). It is therefore not to be wondered at that he had the loftiest conception of the Kabbalah, that he regarded it as a divine science and as a genuine revelation whose light is revealed to a rational soul.12It cannot be said that Lully derived as much benefit from the Mohammedans, for after making three perilous journeys to Africa to bring the sons of Ishmael to the truth of Christianity, he was stoned to death by them, June 30, 1315.The new era in the development of the Kabbalah, created by the appearance of theSohar, has continued to the present day, for nearly all those who have since espoused the doctrines of this theosophy have made theSohartheir text-book, and the principal writers have contented themselves more or less with writing commentaries on this gigantic pseudonym.1290–1350. Foremost among these is Menahem di Recanti, who was born in Recanti (Latin Recinetum) about 1290. He wrote, when about forty years of age (1330), a commentary[201]on the Pentateuch, which is little else than a commentary on theSohar. This commentary—which was first published by Jacob b. Chajim in Bomberg’s celebrated printing establishment, Venice, 1523, then again,ibid., 1545, and in Lublin, 1595—has been translated into Latin by the famous Pico della Mirandola.131320. At the beginning of the fourteenth century Joseph b. Abraham Ibn Wakkar (flour. 1290–1340) endeavoured to reconcile this theosophy with philosophy, and to this end wrote a Treatise on the cardinal doctrines of the Kabbalah, which is regarded as one of the best if not the best introductory compendium. This production, which is unpublished, and a MS. of which exists in the Bodleian Library (Codex Land. 119; described by Uri No. 384), consists of four parts orGates, subdivided into chapters, as follows:—Gate I, which is entitled,On the views of the Kabbalists respecting the Primary Cause, blessed be he, and the Sephiroth, as well as their names and order, consists of eight chapters, treating respectively on the fundamental doctrines of the emanations of theSephirothfrom the First Cause, as transmitted from Abraham and indicated in the Bible and the Rabbinic writings inGematrias(cap. i); on the unity of theSephiroth(cap. ii); the relation of theSephirothto each other, the First Cause itself being a trinity consisting of a threefold light, the number of theSephirothbeing from 10, 20, 30 and so on up to 310, stating that there is a difference of opinion amongst the Kabbalists whether the Primary Cause is within or without theSephiroth(cap. iii); on the three worlds of theSephiroth(cap. iv); on the beginninglessness of the first and necessary first Emanation, investigating the question as to how manySephiroththis property extends (cap. v); on[202]the subordination and order of theSephirothand the diagrams, mentioning, in addition to the three known ones, the figure of bridegroom and bride under the nuptial canopy (cap. vi); on the names of the Deity and the angels derived from theSephiroth(cap. vii); on the unclean (demon)Sephirothor Hells (קליפות) and their relation to the pure ones (cap. viii).Gate II, which is entitled,On the influence of the Sephiroth on the government of the world(Providence), consists of six chapters, treating respectively on the relation of theSephirothto the fundamental characteristics of Providence, such as mercy, justice, &c. (cap. i); on the corresponding relations of the uncleanSephiroth(cap. ii); on the influence of theSephirothon men, especially on the Hebrew race, and their vicissitudes (caps. iii and iv); on the possibility of theSephirothwithholding this influence (cap. v); and on the relation of theSephirothto the days of the week (cap. vi).Gate III, which is entitled,On the names of the Sephiroth among the Kabbalists, and which is the most extensive part of the work, consists of seven chapters, treating respectively on the names of the Deity, giving the sundry explanations ofאהיה אשר אהיהcurrent among the Jewish philosophers (cap.i); on the names of theSephiroth, stating that there is no uniform principle among the Kabbalists; that the appellations are derived from the Bible, the Talmud and later literati; that the greatest difference of opinion prevails among the Kabbalists as to the mode in which these ancient sources are to be interpreted, recommending the following works as reliable guides: the Talmud, Midrash Rabboth, Siphra, Siphri, Bahir, Perakim of R. Eliezer, the opinions of Nachmanides and Todros Ha-Levi Abulafia of honoured memory, but guarding against theSohar, because “many blunders occur therein”(cap. ii); on the import of the names of theSephiroth, with examples of interpretation of the Bible and Talmud[203]to serve as aids for the student who is to prosecute the work according to these examples, mentioning three explanations of the wordSephira(cap. iii); on the divine names occurring in the Pentateuch (cap. iv); on the masculine and feminine nature of theSephiroth(cap. v); this is followed (cap. vi) by an alphabetical dictionary of the names of theSephiroth, giving under each letter the Biblical and the corresponding Talmudic appellation appropriated by the Kabbalists to theSephiroth; and (cap. vii) by an index of the names of eachSephirain alphabetical order without any explanation.Gate IV, which is entitledOn the positive proofs of the existence of the Kabbalah, describes the author’s own views of the Kabbalistic system, and submits that the Kabbalist has a preference over the philosopher and astronomer by virtue of the acknowledged maxim that he has a thorough knowledge of a thing who knows most details about it. Now the Kabbalists build their system upon the distinction of words, letters, &c., &c., in the sacred writings; and they also explain certain formularies among the Rabbins, which have undoubtedly a recondite sense.141370–1500. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the Kabbalah took deep root in Spain. Its followers, who were chiefly occupied with the study ofthe Sohar, with editing some older works, and with writing Kabbalistic commentaries on the Bible, became more and more aggressive, denouncing in unmeasured terms their co-religionists who could not see the advantages of this secret doctrine. Thus Abraham b. Isaac of Granada—who wrote (1391–1409) a Kabbalistic work entitledThe Covenant of Peace, discussing[204]the mysteries of the names of God and the angels, of permutations, commutations, the vowel points and accents—declares that he who does not acknowledge God in the manner of the Kabbalah sins unwittingly, is not regarded by God, has not his special providence, and, like the abandoned and the wicked, is left to fate.15Similar in import and tone are the writings of Shem Tob Ibn Shem Tob (died 1430). In his Treatise, entitledthe Book of Faithfulness, which is an attack on the Jewish philosophers Ibn Ezra, Maimonides, Levi b. Gershon, &c., and a defence of the Kabbalah, Shem Tob denounces the students of philosophy as heretics, and maintains that the salvation of Israel depends upon the Kabbalah. He also wrote Homilies on the Pentateuch, the Feasts and Fasts, &c., in which the Kabbalistic doctrines are fully propounded.16Moses Botarel or Botarelo, also a Spaniard, wrote at this time (1409) his commentary on the famousBook Jetzira, an analysis of which is given in the foregoing part of this Essay (vide supra, p. 147, &c.) Unlike Abraham of Granada and Shem Tob, his two contemporary champions of the Kabbalah, he praises philosophy, speaks of Aristotle as of a prophet, and maintains that philosophy and the Kabbalah propound exactly the some doctrines, and that they only differ in language and in technical terms. In this commentary, which he wrote to instruct the Christian scholar Maestro Juan in the Kabbalah, Botarel shows how, by fasting, ablutions, prayer, invocation of divine and angelic names, a man may have such dreams as shall disclose to him the secrets of the future. In confirmation of his opinions he quotes such ancient authorities as Rab Ashi, Saadia Gaon, Hai Gaon, &c., whom the Kabbalah claims as its great[205]pillars.17It is almost needless to remark that these men lived long before the birth of the Kabbalah, and that this mode of palming comparatively modern opinions upon great men of remote ages, has also been adopted by advocates of other systems who were anxious to invest their views with the halo of antiquity.As countrymen of the foregoing writers, and as exponents of the opinions of older Kabbalists, are to be mentioned—(i) Jehudah Chajath who was among the large number of Jews expelled from Spain in 1493, and who wrote a commentary on the Kabbalistic work, entitledThe Divine Order;18and (ii) Abraham Ibn Sabba, who was banished with thousands of his brethren from Lisbon, 1499, and who is the author of a very extensive commentary on the Pentateuch, entitledThe Bundle of Myrrh, in which he largely avails himself of theSoharand other earlier Kabbalistic works.191463–1494. The Kabbalah, which soon after its birth became partially known to Christians through Raymond Lully, was now accessible to Christian scholars through the exertions and influence of the famous Count John Pico di Mirandola (born in 1463). This celebrated philosopher determined to fathom the mysteries of the Kabbalah, and for this purpose put himself under the tuition of a Jew, R. Jochanan Aleman, who came to Italy from Constantinople. His extraordinary intellectual powers soon enabled Mirandola to overcome the difficulties and to unravel the secrets of this theosophy. His labours were greatly rewarded; for, according to his shewing,[206]he found that20there is more Christianity in the Kabbalah than Judaism; he discovered in it proof for the doctrine of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the divinity of Christ, original sin, the expiation thereof by Christ, the heavenly Jerusalem, the fall of the angels, the order of the angels, purgatory and hell-fire; in fact the same Gospel which we find in St. Paul, Dionysius, St. Jerome and St. Augustine. As the result of his Kabbalistic studies Mirandola published, in 1486, when only twenty-four years of age,nine hundred Theses, which were placarded in Rome, and which he undertook to defend in the presence of all European scholars, whom he invited to the eternal city, promising to defray their travelling expenses. Among theseTheseswas the following, “No science yields greater proof of the divinity of Christ than magic and the Kabbalah.”21Pope Sixtus IV (1471–1484) was so delighted with it that he greatly exerted himself to have Kabbalistic writings translated into Latin for the use of divinity students.22Mirandola accordingly translated the following three works: 1, Menahem di Recanti’s Commentary on the Pentateuch, erroneously calledR. Levide Recineto (Wolf,ibid., p. 10); 2, Eliezer of Worms’חכמת הנפשde Scientia animae; and 3, Shem Tob Falaquera’sספר המעלות1455–1522. Not only did Mirandola make the Kabbalah known to the Christians in Italy, but he was the means of introducing it into Germany through John Reuchlin, the[207]father of the German Reformation. This eminent scholar,—who is also called by the Greek nameCapnion(καπνίον), orCapnio, which is a translation of his German nameReuchlin,i.e.smoke, in accordance with the fashion of the time; just asGerard, signifyingamiable, assumed the name ofDesiderius Erasmus, andSchwartzerth, denotingblack earth, took the name ofMelanchthon,—was born at Phorzheim December 28, 1455. At the age of seventeen he was called to the court of Baden, and received among the court singers in consequence of his beautiful voice. His brilliant attainments soon attracted notice, and he was sent (1473) with the young Margrave Frederick, eldest son of Charles II, afterwards bishop of Utrecht, to the celebrated high school of Paris. Here he acquired, from Hermonymus of Sparta and other fugitive Greek literati, who went to Paris after the taking of Constantinople (1453), that remarkable knowledge of Greek which enabled him so largely to amass the Attic lore and rendered him so famous through Europe. He went to Basle in 1474, delivered lectures on the Latin language and the classics, and had among his hearers nobles of high rank both from France and Germany. He went to Tübingen in 1481, where his fame secured for him the friendship of Eberhard the Bearded, who made him his private secretary and privy councillor, and as such this prince took Reuchlin with him to Rome in 1482, where he made that splendid Latin oration before the Pope and the cardinals, which elicited from his Holiness the declaration that Reuchlin deserved to be placed among the best orators of France and Italy. From Rome Eberhard took him to Florence, and it was here that Reuchlin became acquainted with the celebrated Mirandola and with the Kabbalah. But as he was appointed licentiate and assessor of the supreme court in Stuttgard, the new residence of Eberhard, on his return in 1484, and as the order of Dominicans elected him as their proctor in the whole of Germany,[208]Reuchlin had not time to enter at once upon the study of Hebrew and Aramaic, which are the key to the Kabbalah, and he had reluctantly to wait till 1492, when he accompanied Eberhard to the imperial court at Ling. Here he became acquainted with R. Jacob b. Jechiel Loanz, a learned Hebrew, and court physician of Frederick III, from whom he learned Hebrew.23Whereupon Reuchlin at once betook himself to the study ofthe Kabbalah, and within two years of his beginning to learn the language in which it is written, his first Kabbalistic treatise, entitledDe Verbo Mirifico(Basle, 1494), appeared. This treatise is of the greatest rarity, and the following analysis of it is given by Franck. It is in the form of a dialogue between an Epicurean philosopher named Sidonius, a Jew named Baruch, and the author, who is introduced by his Greek name Capnio, and consists of three books, according to the number of speakers.Book I, the exponent of which is Baruch the Jewish Kabbalist, is occupied with a refutation of the Epicurean doctrines; and simply reproduces the arguments generally urged against this system, for which reason we omit any further description of it.Book II endeavours to shew that all wisdom and true philosophy are derived from the Hebrews, that Plato, Pythagoras and Zoroaster borrowed their ideas from the Bible, and that traces of the Hebrew language are to be found in the liturgies and sacred books of all nations. Then follows an explanation of the four divine names, which are shown to have been transplanted into the systems of Greek philosophy. The first and most distinguished of themאהיה אשר אהיהego sum qui sum( Exod. iii, 12 ), is translated in the Platonic philosophy byτὸὄντωςὢν. The second divine name, which we translate byהואHe,i.e., the sign of unchangeableness and[209]of the eternal idea of the Deity, is also to be found among the Greek philosophers in the termταυτὸν, which is opposed toθατερὸν. The third name of God used in Holy Writ isאשFire. In this form God appeared in the burning bush when he first manifested himself to Moses. The prophets describe him as a burning fire, and John the Baptist depicts him as such when he says, “I baptize you with water, but he who cometh after me shall baptize you with fire.” ( Matt. iii, 11 .) The fire of the Hebrew prophets is the same as the ether (αἰθὴρ) mentioned in the hymns of Orpheus. But these three names are in reality only one, showing to us the divine nature in three different aspects. Thus God calls himselfthe Being, because every existence emanates from him; he calls himselfFire, because it is he who illuminates and animates all things and he is alwaysHe, because he always remains like himself amidst the infinite variety of his works. Now just as there are names which express the nature of the Deity, so there are names which refer to his attributes, and these are theten Sephiroth. If we look away from every attribute and every definite point of view in which the divine subsistence may be contemplated, if we endeavour to depict the absolute Being as concentrating himself within himself, and not affording us any explicable relation to our intellect, he is then described by a name which it is forbidden to pronounce, by the thrice holy Tetragrammaton, the name Jehovah (יהוה)the Shem Ha-Mephorash(שם המפורש).There is no doubt that the tetrad (τετρακτύς) of Pythagoras is an imitation of the Hebrew Tetragrammaton, and that the worship of the decade has simply been invented in honour of theten Sephiroth. The four letters composing this name represent the four fundamental constituents of the body (i.e., heat, cold, dryness and humidity), the four geometrical principal points (i.e., the point, the line, flat and body), the four notes of the musical scale, the four rivers in the earthly[210]paradise, the four symbolical figures in the vision of Ezekiel, &c., &c., &c. Moreover if we look at these four letters separately we shall find that each of them has equally a recondite meaning. The first letterי, which also stands for the numberten, and which by its form reminds us of the mathematical point, teaches us that God is the beginning and end of all things. The numberfive, expressed byהthe second letter, shows us the union of God with nature—of God inasmuch as he is depicted by the number three,i.e., the Trinity; and of visible nature, inasmuch as it is represented by Plato and Pythagoras under the dual. The numbersix, expressed byו, the third letter, which is likewise revered in the Pythagorean school, is formed by the combination of one, two, and three, the symbol of all perfection. Moreover the numbersixis the symbol of the cube, the bodies (solida), or the world. Hence it is evident that the world has in it the imprint of divine perfection. The fourth and last letter of this divine name (ה) is like the second, represents the numberfive, and here symbolizes the human and rational soul, which is the medium between heaven and earth, just as five is the centre of the decade, the symbolic expression of the totality of things.Book III, the exponent of which is Capnio, endeavours to shew that the most essential doctrines of Christianity are to be found by the same method. Let a few instances of this method suffice. Thus the doctrine of the Trinity is to be found in the first verse of Genesis. If the Hebrew wordבראwhich is translatedcreated, be examined, and if each of the three letters composing this word be taken as the initial of a separate word, we obtain the expressionsבן רוח אבSon,Spirit,Father. Upon the same principle we find the two persons of the Trinity in the words, “the stone which the builders refused is become the heed stone of the corner” ( Ps. cxviii, 22 ), inasmuch as the three letters composing the[211]wordאבןstone, are to be divided intoאב בןFather,Son. Orpheus, in his hymn on the night, described the Trinity of the New Testament in the words,νὺξ, οὐρανὸς, αἰθὴρ, for night which begets everything can only designatethe Father; heaven, that olyphus which in its boundlessness embraces all things, and which proceeded from the night, signifiesthe Son; whilst ether, which the ancient poet also designatesfiery breath, is theHoly Ghost. The name Jesus in Hebrewי״ה״ש״ו״הtheπενταγράμματονyields the nameיהוהJehovah; and theשwhich in the language of the Kabbalah is the symbol of fire or light, which St. Jerome, in his mystical exposition of the alphabet, has made the sign of theΛόγος. This mysterious name therefore contains a whole revelation, inasmuch as it shows us that Jesus is God himself, the Light or theLogos. Even the cross, which is the symbol of Christianity, is plainly indicated in the Old Testament, by the tree of life which God planted in the midst of the garden; by the praying attitude of Moses, when he raised his hands towards heaven in his intercession for Israel during the combat with Amalek; and by the tree which converted the bitter waters into sweet in the wilderness of Marah.24The Treatisede Verbo Mirificois, however, only an introduction to another work on the same subject which Reuchlin published twenty-two years later, entitledDe Arte Cabalistica. Hagenau, 1516. This Treatise, like the first, is in the form of a dialogue between a Mohammedan named Marrianus, a Pythagorean Philosopher named Philolaus, and a Jewish doctor named Simon. The dialogue is held in Frankfort, where the Jew resides, to whom the Mohammedan and Pythagorean resort to be initiated into the mysteries of the Kabbalah. The whole is a more matured exposition and elaboration of the ideas hinted at in his first work.[212]The Kabbalah, according to Reuchlin, is a symbolical reception of Divine revelation; and a distinction is to be made betweenCabalici, to whom belongs heavenly inspiration, their disciplesCabalaai, and their imitatorsCabalistae. The design of the Kabbalah is to propound the relations of the absolute Creator to the creature. God is the Creator of all beings which emanated from him, and he implanted aspirations in them to attain actual communion with him. In order that feeble man might attain this communion, God revealed himself to mankind in various ways, but especially to Moses. This Divine revelation to Moses contains far more than appears on the surface of the Pentateuch. There is a recondite wisdom concealed in it which distinguishes it from other codes of morals and precepts. There are in the Pentateuch many pleonasms and repetitions of the same things and words, and as we cannot charge God with having inserted useless and superfluous words in the Holy Scriptures, we must believe that something more profound is contained in them, to which the Kabbalah gives the key.This key consists in permutations, commutations, &c., &c. But this act of exchanging and arranging letters, and of interpreting for the edification of the soul the Holy Scriptures, which we have received from God as a divine thing not to be understood by the multitude, was not communicated by Moses to everybody, but to the elect, such as Joshua, and so by tradition it came to the seventy interpreters. This gift is calledKabbalah. God, out of love to his people, has revealed hidden mysteries to some of them, and these have found the living spirit in the dead letter; that is to say, the Scriptures consist of separate letters, visible signs which stand in a certain relation to the angels as celestial and spiritual emanations from God; and by pronouncing them, the latter also are affected. To a true Kabbalist, who has an insight into the whole connection of the terrestrial with the celestial, these[213]signs thus put together are the means of placing him in close union with spirits, who are thereby bound to fulfil his wishes.25The extraordinary influence which Reuchlin’s Kabbalistic Treatises exercised upon the greatest thinkers of the time and upon the early reformers may be judged of from the unmeasured terms of praise which they bestowed upon their author. The Treatises were regarded as heavenly communications, revealing new divine wisdom. Conrad Leontarius, writing to Wimpheling on the subject, says—“I never saw anything more beautiful or admirable than this work (i.e.,De Verbo Mirifico), which easily convinces him who reads it that no philosopher, whether Jew or Christian, is superior to Reuchlin.” Aegidius, general of the Eremites, wrote to the holy Augustine “that Reuchlin had rendered him, as well as the rest of mankind, happy by his works, which had made known to all a thing hitherto unheard of.” Philip Beroaldus, the younger, sent him word “that Pope Leo X had read his Pythagorean book greedily, as he did all good books; afterwards the Cardinal de Medici had done so, and he himself should soon enjoy it.”26Such was the interest which this newly-revealed Kabbalah created among Christians, that not only learned men but statesmen and warriors began to study the oriental languages, in order to be able to fathom the mysteries of this theosophy.1450–1498. Whilst the Kabbalah was gaining such high favour amongst Christians both in Italy and Germany, through the exertions of Mirandola and Reuchlin, a powerful voice was raised among the Jews againstthe Sohar, the very Bible of this theosophy. Elia del Medigo, born at Candia, then in Venetia, 1450, of a German literary family, professor of[214]philosophy in the University of Padua, teacher of Pico de Mirandola, and a scholar of the highest reputation both among his Jewish brethren and among Christians, impugned the authority ofthe Sohar. In his philosophical Treatise on the nature of Judaism as a harmonizer between religion and philosophy, entitledAn Examination of the Law(בחינת הדת), which he wrote December 29, 1491, he puts into the mouth of an antagonist to the Kabbalah the following three arguments against the genuineness of theSohar: 1, Neither the Talmud, nor the Gaonim and Rabbins knew anything of theSoharor of its doctrines; 2, TheSoharwas published at a very late period; and 3, Many anachronisms occur in it, inasmuch as it describes later Amoraic authorities as having direct intercourse with the Tanaite R. Simon b. Jochai who belongs to an earlier period.271522–1570. The voice of Elia del Medigo and others, however, had no power to check the rapid progress of the Kabbalah, which had now found its way from Spain and Italy into Palestine and Poland, and penetrated all branches of life and literature. Passing over the host of minor advocates and teachers, we shall mention the two great masters in Palestine, who formed two distinct schools, distinguished by the prominence which they respectively gave to certain doctrines of the Kabbalah. The first of these is Moses Cordovero, also calledRemak=רמ׳קfrom the acrostic of his nameקורדואירוR. Moses Cordovero. He was born in Cordova, 1522, studied the Kabbalah under his learned brother-in-law, Solomon Aleavez, and very soon became so distinguished as a Kabbalist and author that his fame travelled to Italy, where his works were greedily bought. His principal works are: 1, An Introduction to the Kabbalah, entitledA SombreorSweet[215]Light(אור נערב) first published in Venice, 1587, then in Cracow, 1647, and in Fürth, 1701; 2, Kabbalistic reflections and comments on ninety-nine passages of the Bible, entitledThe Book of Retirement(ספר נרושין), published in Venice, 1543; and 3, A large Kabbalistic work entitledThe Garden of Pomegranates(פרדס רמונים), which consists of thirteen sections or gates (שערים) subdivided into chapters, and discussesthe Sephiroth, the Divine names, the import and significance of the letters, &c., &c. It was first published in Cracow, 1591. Excerpts of it have been translated into Latin by Bartolocci,Bibliotheca Magna Rabbinica, vol. iv, p. 231, &c., and Knorr von Rosenroth,Tractatus de Anima ex libro Pardes Rimmonimin hisKabbalaDenudata, Sulzbach, 1677.28The peculiar feature of Cordovero is that he is chiefly occupied with the scientific speculations of the Kabbalah, orthe speculative Kabbalah(קבלה עיונית), as it is called in the modern terminology of this esoteric doctrine, in contra-distinction tothe wonder-working Kabbalah(קבלה מעשית), keeping aloof to a great extent from the extravagances which we shall soon have to notice. In this respect therefore he represents the Kabbalah in its primitive state, as may be seen from the following specimen of his lucubrations on the nature of the Deity. “The knowledge of the Creator is different from that of the creature, since in the case of the latter, knowledge and the thing known are distinct, thus leading to subjects which are again separate from him. This is described by the three expressions—cogitation, the cogitator and the cogitated object. Now the Creator is himself knowledge, knowing and the known object. His knowledge does not consist in the fact that he directs his thoughts to things[216]without him, since in comprehending and knowing himself, he comprehends and knows everything which exists. There is nothing which is not united with him, and which he does not find in his own substance. He is the archetype of all things existing, and all things are in him in their purest and most perfect form; so that the perfection of the creatures consists in the support whereby they are united to the primary source of his existence, and they sink down and fall from that perfect and lofty position in proportion to their separation from him.”291534–1572. The opposite to this school is the one founded by Isaac Luria or Loria, also calledAri=אר״יfrom the initials of his nameהאשכנזי ר׳ יצחקR. Isaac Ashkanazi. He was born at Jerusalem 1534, and, having lost his father when very young, was taken by his mother to Kahira, where he was put by his rich uncle under the tuition of the best Jewish master. Up to his twenty-second year he was a diligent student of the Talmud and the Rabbinic lore, and distinguished himself in these departments of learning in a most remarkable manner. He then lived in retirement for about seven years to give free scope to his thoughts and meditations, but he soon found that simple retirement from collegiate studies did not satisfy him. He therefore removed to the banks of the Nile, where he lived in a sequestered cottage for several years, giving himself up entirely to meditations and reveries. Here he had constant interviews with the prophet Elias, who communicated to him sublime doctrines. Here, too, his soul ascended to heaven whenever he was asleep, and in the celestial regions held converse with the souls of the great teachers of bygone days. When thirty-six years of age (1570) the Prophet Elias appeared to him again and told him to go to Palestine, where his successor was awaiting him. Obedient to the command, he went to Safet, where he gathered[217]round him ten disciples, visited the sepulchres of ancient teachers, and there, by prostrations and prayers, obtained from their spirits all manner of revelations, so much so that he was convinced he was the Messiah b. Joseph and that he was able to perform all sorts of miracles. It was this part of the Kabbalah,i.e., the ascetic and miraculous (כבלה מעשית), which Loria taught. His sentiments he delivered orally, as he himself did not write anything, except perhaps some marginal notes of a critical import in older books and MSS. His disciples treasured up his marvellous sayings, whereby they performed miracles and converted thousands to the doctrines of this theosophy.1543–1620. The real exponent of Loria’s Kabbalistic system is his celebrated disciple Chajim Vital, a descendant of a Calabrian family, who died in 1620 at the age of seventy-seven. After the demise of his teacher, Chajim Vital diligently collected all the MS. notes of the lectures which Loria’s disciples had written down, from which, together with his own jottings, he produced the gigantic and famous system of the Kabbalah, entitledthe Tree of Life(עץ החיים). This work, over which Vital laboured thirty years, was at first circulated in MS. copies, and every one of the Kabbalistic disciples had to pledge himself, under pain of excommunication, not to allow a copy to be made for a foreign land; so that for a time all the Codd. remained in Palestine. At last, however, this Thesaurus of the Kabbalah, which properly consists of six works, was published by J. Satanow at Zolkiev, 1772. New editions of it appeared in Korez, 1785; Sklow, 1800; Dobrowne, 1804; Stilikow, 1818; and Knorr von Rosenroth has translated into Latin a portion of that part of the great work which treats onthe doctrine of the metempsychosis(הגלגולים).301558–1560. The circulation of Loria’s work which gave[218]an extraordinary impetus to the Kabbalah, and which gave rise to the new school and a separate congregation in Palestine, was not the only favourable circumstance which had arisen to advance and promulgate the esoteric doctrine. TheSohar, which since its birth had been circulated in MS., was now for the first time printed in Mantua, and thousands of people who had hitherto been unable to procure the MS. were thus enabled to possess themselves of copies.31It is, however, evident that with the increased circulation of these two Bibles of the Kabbalah, as theSoharand Loria’sEtz Chajimare called, there was an increased cry on the part of learned Jews against the doctrines propounded in them. Isaac b. Immanuel de Lates, the Rabbi of Pesaro, and the great champion for the Kabbalah, who prefixed a commendatory epistle to theSohar, tells us most distinctly that some Rabbins wanted to prevent the publication of theSohar, urging that it ought to be kept secret or be burned, because it tends to heretical doctrines.321571–1648. Of the numerous opponents to the Kabbalah which theSoharand Loria’s work called forth, Leo de Modena was by far the most daring, the most outspoken and the most powerful. This eminent scholar who is known to the Christian world by his celebratedHistory of the Rites, Customs and Manners of the Jews, which was originally written in Italian, published in Padua, 1640, and which has been translated into Latin, English, French, Dutch, &c., attacked the Kabbalah in two of his works. His first onslaught is on the doctrine of metempsychosis in his Treatise entitledBen David. He composed this Treatise in 1635–36, at the request of David Finzi, of Egypt, and he demonstrates therein that this doctrine[219]is of Gentile origin, and was rejected by the great men of the Jewish faith in bygone days, refuting at the same time the philosophico-theological arguments advanced in its favour.33It is, however, his second attack on this esoteric doctrine, in his work entitledThe Roaring Lion(ארי נוהם), which is so damaging to the Kabbalah. In this Treatise—which Leo de Modena composed in 1639, at the advanced age of sixty-eight, to reclaim Joseph Chamiz, a beloved disciple of his, who was an ardent follower of the Kabbalah—he shows that the books which propound this esoteric doctrine, and which are palmed upon ancient authorities, are pseudonymous; that the doctrines themselves are mischievous; and that the followers of this system are inflated with proud notions, pretending to know the nature of God better than anyone else, and to possess the nearest and best way of approaching the Deity.341623. The celebrated Hebraist, Joseph Solomon del Medigo (born 1591, died 1637), a contemporary of the preceding writer, also employed his vast stores of erudition to expose this system. Having been asked by R. Serach for his views of the Kabbalah, del Medigo, in a masterly letter, written in 1623, shows up the folly of this esoteric doctrine, and the unreasonableness of the exegetical rules, whereby the followers of this system pretend to deduce it from the Bible.351635. We have seen that the information about the Kabbalah, which Mirandola and Reuchlin imparted to Christians, was chiefly derived from the writings of Recanti and Gikatilla. Now that theSoharhad been published, Joseph de Voisin[220]determined to be the first to make some portions of it accessible to those Christian readers who did not understand the Aramaic in which this Thesaurus is written. Accordingly he translated some extracts of theSoharwhich treat of the nature of the human soul.361652–1654. Just at the very time when some of the most distinguished Jews exposed the pretensions of the Kabbalah, and denounced the fanciful and unjustifiable rules of interpretation whereby its advocates tried to evolve it from the letters of the revealed law, the celebrated Athanasius Kircher, in a most learned and elaborate treatise on this subject, maintained that the Kabbalah was introduced into Egypt by no less a person than the patriarch Abraham; and that from Egypt it gradually issued all over the East, and intermixed with all religions and systems of philosophy. What is still more extraordinary is that this learned Jesuit, in thus exalting the Kabbalah, lays the greatest stress on that part of it which developed itself afterwards, viz., the combinations, transpositions and permutations of the letters, and does not discriminate between it and the speculations about theEn Soph,the Sephiroth, &c., which were the original characteristics of this theosophy.37The amount of Eastern lore, however, which Kircher has amassed in his work will always remain a noble monument to the extensive learning of this Jesuit.1645–1676. The wonder-working or practical branch of the Kabbalah (קבלה מעשית), as it is called, so elaborately propounded and defended by Kircher, which consists in the transpositions of the letters of the sundry divine names, &c., and which as we have seen constituted no part of the original Kabbalah, had now largely laid hold on the minds and fancies[221]of both Jews and Christians, and was producing among the former the most mournful and calamitous effects. The famous Kabbalist, Sabbatai Zevi, who was born in Smyrna, July, 1641, was the chief actor in this tragedy. When a child he was sent to a Rabbinic school, and instructed in the Law, the Mishna, the Talmud, the Midrashim, and the whole cycle of Rabbinic lore. So great were his intellectual powers, and so vast the knowledge he acquired, that when fifteen he betook himself to the study of the Kabbalah, rapidly mastered its mysteries, became peerless in his knowledge of “those things which were revealed and those things which were hidden;” and at the age of eighteen obtained the honourable appellationsage(חכם), and delivered public lectures, expounding the divine law and the esoteric doctrine before crowded audiences. At the age of twenty-four he gave himself out as the Messiah, the Son of David, and the Redeemer of Israel, pronouncing publicly the Tetragrammaton, which was only allowed to the high priests during the existence of the second Temple. Though the Jewish sages of Smyrna excommunicated him for it, he travelled to Salonica, Athens, Morea and Jerusalem, teaching the Kabbalah, proclaiming himself as the Messiah, anointing prophets and converting thousands upon thousands. So numerous were the believers in him, that in many places trade was entirely stopped; the Jews wound up their affairs, disposed of their chattels and made themselves ready to be redeemed from their captivity and led by Sabbatai Zevi back to Jerusalem. The consuls of Europe were ordered to enquire into this extraordinary movement, and the governors of the East reported to the Sultan the cessation of commerce. Sabbatai Zevi was then arrested by order of the Sultan, Mohammed IV, and taken before him at Adrianople. The Sultan spoke to him as follows—“I am going to test thy Messiahship. Three poisoned arrows shall be shot into thee, and if they do not kill thee, I too will believe that thou art the[222]Messiah.” He saved himself by embracing Islamism in the presence of the Sultan, who gave him the nameEffendi, and appointed himKapidgi Bashi. Thus ended the career of the Kabbalist Sabbatai Zevi, after having ruined thousands upon thousands of Jewish families.381677–1684. Whether the learned Knorr Baron von Rosenroth knew of the extravagances of Sabbatai Zevi or not is difficult to say. At all events this accomplished Christian scholar believed that Simon b. Jochai was the author of theSohar, that he wrote it under divine inspiration, and that it is most essential to the elucidation of the doctrines of Christianity. With this conviction he determined to master the difficulties connected with the Kabbalistic writings, in order to render the principal works of this esoteric doctrine accessible to his Christian brethren. For, although Lully, Mirandola, Reuchlin and Kircher had already done much to acquaint the Christian world with the secrets of the Kabbalah, none of these scholars had given translations of any portions of theSohar.Knorr Baron von Rosenroth, therefore put himself under the tuition of R. Meier Stern, a learned Jew, and with his assistance was enabled to publish the celebrated work entitled theUnveiled Kabbalah(Kabbala Denudata), in two large volumes, the first of which was printed at Sulzbach, 1677–78, and the second at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, 1684, giving a Latin translation of the Introduction to and the following portion of theSohar—theBook of Mysteries(ספר דצניעותא); theGreat Assembly(אדרא רבא); theSmall Assembly(אדרא זוטא); Joseph Gikatilla’sGate of Light(שער אורה); theDoctrine of Metempsychosis(הגלגולים), and theTree of Life(עץ חיים), of Chajim Vital; theGarden of Pomegranates(פרדס רימונים), of Moses Cordovero; theHouse of the Lord(בית אלהים), and theGate of Heaven(שער השמים), of[223]Abraham Herera; theValley of the King(עמק המלך), of Naphtah b. Jacob; theVision of the Priest(מראה כהן), of Issachar Beer b. Naphtali Cohen, &c., &c., with elaborate annotations, glossaries and indices. The only drawback to this gigantic work is that it is without any system, and that it mixes up in one all the earlier developments of the Kabbalah with the later productions. Still the criticism passed upon it by Buddeus, that it is a “confused and obscure work, in which the necessary and the unnecessary, the useful and the useless are mixed up and thrown together as it were into one chaos,”39is rather too severe; and it must be remembered that if theKabbala Denudatadoes not exhibit a regular system of this esoteric doctrine, it furnishes much material for it. Baron von Rosenroth has also collected all the passages of the New Testament which contain similar doctrines to those propounded by the Kabbalah.
It now remains for us to describe the development of the Kabbalah, to point out the different schools into which its followers are divided, and to detail the literature which this theosophy called into existence in the course of time. The limits of this Essay demand that this should be done as briefly as possible.The great land mark in the development of the Kabbalah is the birth ofthe Sohar, which divides the history of this theosophy into two periods, viz., the pre-Soharperiod and the post-Soharperiod. During these two periods different schools developed themselves, which are classified by the erudite historian, Dr. Graetz, as follows:—1I.—THE SCHOOL OF GERONA, so called from the fact that the founders of it were born in this place and established the school in it. To this school, which is the cradle of the Kabbalah, belong1. Isaac the Blind (flour. 1190–1210), denominated the Father of the Kabbalah. His productions have become a prey to time, and only a few fragments have survived as quotations in other theosophic works. From these we learn that he espoused the despised doctrine of metempsychosis as an article of creed, and that from looking into a man’s face, he could tell whether the individual possessed a new soul from the celestial world of spirits, or whether he had an old soul which has been migrating from body to body and has still to accomplish its purity before its return to rest in its heavenly home.[190]2. Azariel and Ezra, disciples of Isaac the Blind. The former of these is the author of the celebratedCommentary on the Ten Sephiroth, which is the first Kabbalistic production, and of which we have given an analysis in the second part of this Essay (vide supra, p. 176). Of Ezra next to nothing is known beyond the fact that his great intimacy with Azariel led some writers to identify the two names.3. Jehudah b. Jakar, a contemporary of the foregoing Kabbalists. No works of his have survived, and he is only known as the teacher of the celebrated Nachmanides and from being quoted as a Kabbalistic authority.4. Moses Nachmanides, born in Gerona about 1195, the pupil of Azariel, Ezra, and Jehudah Ibn Jakar. It was the conversion of this remarkable and famous Talmudist to this newly-born Kabbalah which gave to it an extraordinary importance and rapid spread amongst the numerous followers of Nachmanides. It is related that, notwithstanding all the efforts of his teachers, Nachmanides at first was decidedly adverse to this system; and that one day the Kabbalist who most exerted himself to convert him was caught in a house of ill fame and condemned to death. He requested Nachmanides to visit him on the Sabbath, being the day fixed for his execution; and when Nachmanides reproved him for his sins, the Kabbalist declared that he was innocent, and that he would appear at his house on this very day, after the execution, and partake with him the Sabbath meal. He proved true to his promise, as by means of the Kabbalistic mysteries he effected that, and an ass was executed in his stead, and he himself was suddenly transposed into Nachmanides’ house. From that time Nachmanides avowed himself a disciple of the Kabbalah, and was initiated into its mysteries.2His numerous writings, an account of which will be found in Alexander’s edition of[191]Kitto’s Cyclopædia, underNachmanides, are pervaded with the tenets of this system. In the Introduction to his Commentary on the Pentateuch he remarks—“We possess a faithful tradition that the whole Pentateuch consists of names of the Holy One, blessed be he; for the words may be divided into sacred names in another sense, so that it is to be taken as an allegory. Thus the words—בראשית ברא אלהיםin Gen. i, 1 , may be redivided into other words,ex. gr.בראש יתברא אלהים.In like manner is the whole Pentateuch, which consists of nothing but transpositions and numerals of divine names.”35. TheTreatise on the Emanations(מסכת אצילות), supposed to have been written by R. Isaac Nasir in the first half of the twelfth century. The following is an analysis of this production. Based upon the passage—“Jaresiah and Eliah and Zichri, the sons of Jeroham” ( 1 Chron. viii, 27 ), which names theMidrashassigns to the prophet Eliah (Shemoth Rabba, cap. xl), this prophet is introduced as speaking and teaching under the four names of Eliah b. Josep, Jaresiah b. Joseph, Zechariah b. Joseph and Jeroham b. Joseph. Having stated that the secret and profounder views of the Deity are only to be communicated to the God-fearing, and that none but the pre-eminently pious can enter into the temple of this higher gnosis, the prophet Elias propounds the system of this secret doctrine, which consists in the following maxims—“I. God at first created light and darkness, the one for the pious and the other for the wicked, darkness having come to pass by the divine limitation of light. II. God produced and destroyed sundry worlds, which, like ten trees planted upon a narrow space, contend about the sap of the soil, and finally perish altogether. III. God manifested himself in four worlds,[192]viz.—Atzilah,Beriah,JetziraandAsiah, corresponding to the Tetragrammatonיהוה. In theAtzilatic luminous worldis the divine majesty, the Shechinah. In theBriatic worldare the souls of the saints, all the blessings, the throne of the Deity, he who sits on it in the form of Achtenal (the crown of God, the firstSephira), and the seven different luminous and splendid regions. In theJetziraticworld are the sacred animals from the vision of Ezekiel, the ten classes of angels with their princes, who are presided over by the fiery Metatron, the spirits of men, and the accessory work of the divine chariot. In theAssiaticworld are the Ophanim, the angels who receive the prayers, who are appointed over the will of man, who control the action of mortals, who carry on the struggle against evil, and who are presided over by the angelic prince Synandelphon. IV. The world was founded in wisdom and understanding ( Prov. iii, 19 ), and God in his knowledge originated fifty gates of understanding. V. God created the world by means of theten Sephiroth, which are both the agencies and qualities of the Deity. Theten Sephirothare called Crown, Wisdom, Intelligence, Mercy, Fear, Beauty, Victory, Majesty and Kingdom: they are ideal and stand above the concrete world.”46. Jacob ben Sheshet of Gerona (flour. 1243). He wrote a Kabbalistic Treatise in rhymed prose, entitledשער השמיםthe Gate of Heaven, after Gen. xxviii, 17 . It was first published by Gabriel Warshawer in his collection of eight Kabbalistic Essays, calledספר לקוטימ בקבלה. Warsaw, 1798. It forms the third Essay in this collection, and is erroneously entitledלקוטי שם טובthe Collection of Shem Tob. It has now been published under its proper title, from a codex by[193]Mordecai Mortera, in the Hebrew Essays and Reviews, entitledOzar Nechmad(אוצר נחמד) vol. iii, p. 153, &c. Vienna, 1860.The characteristic feature of this school, which is the creative school, is that it for the first time established and developed the doctrine ofthe En Soph(אין סוף),the Sephiroth(ספירות) orEmanations, metempsychosis (סודהעבור) with the doctrine of retribution (סוד הגמול) belonging thereto, and a peculiar christology, whilst the Kabbalistic mode of exegesis is still subordinate in it.II.—THE SCHOOL OF SEGOVIA, so called because it was founded by Jacob of Segovia, and its disciples were either natives of this place or lived in it. The chief representatives of this school are—1, Isaac, and 2, Jacob, junior, the two sons of Jacob Segovia, and 3, Moses b. Simon of Burgos, who are only known by sundry fragments preserved in Kabbalistic writings.4. Todras b. Joseph Ha-Levi Abulafia, born 1234, died circa 1305. This celebrated Kabbalist occupied a distinguished position as physician and financier in the court of Sancho IV, King of Castile, and was a great favourite of Queen Maria de Moline; he formed one of thecortégewhen this royal pair met Philip IV,the Fair, King of France in Bayonne (1290), and his advocacy of this theosophy secured for the doctrines of the Kabbalah a kindly reception. His works on the Kabbalah are—(a) An Exposition of the Talmudic Hagadoth, entitledאוצר הכבוד, (b) A Commentary on Ps. xix, and (c) A Commentary on the Pentateuch, in which he propounds the tenets of the Kabbalah. These works, however, have not as yet been printed.55. Shem Tob b. Abraham Ibn Gaon, born 1283, died circa 1332, who wrote many Kabbalistic works.6. Isaac of Akko (flour. 1290) author of the Kabbalistic[194]Commentary on the Pentateuch, entitledמאירת עיניםnot yet printed, with the exception of an extract published by Jellinek.6The characteristic of this school is that it is devoted to exegesis, and its disciples endeavoured to interpret the Bible and the Hagada in accordance with the doctrines of the Kabbalah.III.—THE QUASI-PHILOSOPHIC SCHOOL of Isaac b. Abraham Ibn-Latif, or Allatif. He was born about 1270 and died about 1390. Believing that to view Judaism from an exclusively philosophical stand-point does not shew “the right way to the sanctuary,” he endeavoured to combine philosophy with Kabbalah. “He laid greater stress than his predecessors on the close connection and intimate union between the spiritual and material world, between the Creator and the creation—God is in all and everything is in him. The human soul rises to the world-soul in earnest prayer, and unites itself therewith ‘in a kiss,’ operates upon the Deity and brings down a divine blessing upon the nether world. But as every mortal is not able to offer such a spiritual and divinely operative prayer, the prophets, who were the most perfect men, had to pray for the people, for they alone knew the power of prayer. Isaac Allatif illustrated the unfolding and self-revelation of the Deity in the world of spirits by mathematical forms. The mutual relation thereof is the same as that of the point extending and thickening into a line, the line into the flat, the flat into the expanded body. Henceforth the Kabbalists used points and lines in their mystical diagrams as much as they employed the numerals and letters of the alphabet.7IV. THE SCHOOL OF ABULAFIA, founded by Abraham ben Samuel Abulafia, is represented by—[195]1. Abulafia, the founder of it, who was born at Saragossa in 1240, and died circa 1292. For thirty years he devoted himself to the study of the Bible, the Talmud, philology, philosophy, and medicine, making himself master of the philosophical writings of Saadia, Bachja b. Joseph, Maimonides, and Antoli, as well as of the Kabbalistic works which were then in existence. Finding no comfort in philosophy, he gave himself entirely to the mysteries of the Kabbalah in their most fantastic extremes, as the ordinary doctrine ofthe Sephirothdid not satisfy him. The ordinary doctrine ofthe Sephirothhe simply regarded asa ten unityinstead of the Christianthree unity. Through divine inspiration, he discovered a higher Kabbalah, by means of which the soul can not only hold the most intimate communion with the world-soul, but obtain the prophetic faculty. The simple intercourse with the world of spirits, which is effected by separating the words of Holy Writ, and especially those of the divine name, into letters, and by regarding each letter as a distinct word (נוטריקון), or by transposing the component parts of words in every possible way to obtain thereby peculiar expressions (צירוף), or by taking the letters of each word as numerals (גמטריא), is not sufficient.To have the prophetic faculty and to see visions ought to be the chief aim, and these are secured by leading an ascetic life, by banishing all worldly feelings, by retiring into a quiet closet, by dressing oneself in white apparel, by putting on the fringed garment and the phylacteries; by sanctifying the soul so as to be fit to hold converse with the Deity; by pronouncing the letters composing the divine name with certain modulations of the voice and divine pauses; by exhibiting the divine names in various diagrams under divers energetic movements, turnings, and bendings of the body, till the voice gets confused and the heart is filled with fervour. When one has gone through these practices and is in such a condition, the fulness of the[196]Godhead is shed abroad in the human soul: the soul then unites itself with the divine soul in a kiss, and prophetic revelations follow as a matter of course.He went to Italy, published, in Urbino (1279), a prophecy, in which he records his conversations with the Deity, calling himself Raziel and Zechariah, because these names are numerically the same as his own name, Abraham,8and preached the doctrines of the Kabbalah. In 1281 he had a call from God to convert the Pope, Martin IV, to Judaism, for which he was thrown into prison, and narrowly escaped a martyr’s death by fire. Seeing that his Holiness refused to embrace the Jewishreligion, Abulafia went to Sicily, accompanied by several of his disciples. In Messina another revelation from God was vouchsafed to him, announcing to him that he was the Messiah, which he published 1284. This apocalypse also announced that the restoration of Israel would take place in 1296; and so great was the faith which the people reposed in it, that thousands prepared themselves for returning to Palestine. Those, however, who did not believe in the Messiahship and in the Kabbalah of Abulafia, raised such a violent storm of opposition against him, that he had to escape to the island of Comino, near Malta (circa1288), where he remained for some time, and wrote sundry Kabbalistic works.His Kabbalistic system may be gathered from the following analysis of his Rejoinder to R. Solomon ben Abraham ben Adereth, who attacked his doctrines and Messianic as well as prophetic pretensions. “There are,” says Abulafia, “four sources of knowledge—I, The five senses, or experimental maxims; II, Abstract numbers orà priorimaxims; III, The generally acknowledged maxims, orconsensus communis;[197]and IV, Transmitted doctrines or traditional maxims. The Kabbalistic tradition, which goes back to Moses, is divisible into two parts, the first of which is superior to the second in value, but subordinate to it in the order of study. The first part is occupied with the knowledge of the Deity, obtained by means of the doctrine ofthe Sephiroth, as propounded in theBook Jetzira. The followers of this part are related to those philosophers who strive to know God from his works, and the Deity stands before them objectively as a light beaming into their understanding. These, moreover, give tothe Sephirothsundry names to serve as signs for recognition; and some of this class differ but little from Christians, inasmuch as they substitute adecadefor thetriad, which they identify with God, and which they learned in the school of Isaac the Blind.“The second and more important part strives to know God by means of the twenty-two letters of the alphabet, from which, together with the vowel points and accents, those sundry divine names are combined, which elevate the Kabbalists to the degree of prophecy, drawing out their spirit, and causing it to be united with God and to become one with the Deity. This is gradually effected in the following manner. Theten Sephirothsublimate gradually to the upperSephira, calledthought,crown, orprimordial air, which is the root of all the otherSephiroth, and reposes in the creativeEn Soph. In the same manner all the numerals are to be traced back to one, and all the trees, together with their roots and branches, are converted into their original earth as soon as they are thrown into the fire. To theten Sephiroth, consisting of upper, middle and lower, correspond the letters of the alphabet, which are divided into three rows of ten letters each, the final letters inclusive, beginning and ending withAleph; as well as the human body, with its head, the two arms, loins, testicles, liver, heart, brain, all of which unite into a higher unity and become one in the activeνοῦς, which in its[198]turn again unites itself with God, as the unity to which everything must return.“Theten Sephirothare after a higher conception, to be traced to a higher triad, which correspond to the lettersAleph,Beth,Gimmel, and the three principles combined in man, the vital in the heart, the vegetable in the liver, and the pleasurable in the brain, and also form themselves in a higher unity. It is in this way that the Kabbalist who is initiated into thepropheticKabbalah may gradually concentrate all his powers direct to one point to God, and unite himself with the Deity, for which purpose the ideas developed in unbroken sequence, from the permutations of numbers and letters, will serve him as steps upon which to ascend to God.”9Abulafia wrote no less than twenty-six grammatical, exegetical, mystical and Kabbalistic works, and twenty-two prophetic treatises. And though these productions are of great importance to the history of the literature and development of the Kabbalah, yet only two of them, viz., the above-namedEpistle to R. Solomonand theEpistle to R. Abraham, entitledthe Seven Paths of the Law(סוע נתיבות התורה), have as yet been published.2. Joseph Gikatilla b. Abraham (flour. 1260), disciple of Abulafia. He wrote in the interests and defence of this school the following works:—i. A Kabbalistic work entitledthe Garden of Nuts(גנת אגוז), consisting of three parts, and treating respectively on the import of the divine names, on the mysteries of the Hebrew letters, and on the vowel points. It was published at Hanau, 1615. ii. The import of the vowel points entitledthe Book on Vowels(ספר הניקוד), orthe Gate to the Points(שער הניקוד), published in the collection of seven treatises, calledthe Cedars of Lebanon[199](ארזי לבנון), Venice, 1601, and Cracow, 1648, of which it is the third treatise. iii.The Mystery of the Shining Metal(סוד החשמל), being a Kabbalistic exposition of the first chapter of Ezekiel, also published in the preceding seven treatises, of which it is the fourth. iv.The Gate of Light(שער אורה), being a treatise on the names of the Deity and theten Sephiroth, first published in Mantua, 1561; then Riva de Trento, 1561; Cracow, 1600. A Latin version of it by Knorr von Rosenroth is given in the first part of theKabbalaDenudata, Sulzbach, 1677–78. v.The Gates of Righteousness(שערי צדק), on the ten divine names answering to theten Sephiroth, published at Riva de Trento, 1561. vi.Mysteries(סודות) connected with sundry Pentateuchal ordinances, published by Jechiel Ashkenazi in hisTemple of the Lord(היכל יהוה), Venice and Dantzic, 1596–1606.10From the above description it will be seen that the characteristic features of this school are the stress which its followers lay on the extensive use of the exegetical rules calledGematria(גמטריא),Notaricon(נוטריקון), andZiruph(צירוף), in the exposition of the divine names and Holy Writ, as well as in the claim to prophetic gifts. It must, however, be remarked that in this employment of commutations, permutations and reduction of each letter in every word to its numerical value, Abulafia and his followers are not original.V. THE SOHAR SCHOOL, which is a combination and absorption of the different features and doctrines of all the previous schools, without any plan or method.1236–1315. Less than a century after its birth the Kabbalah became known among Christians through the restless efforts of Raymond Lully, the celebrated scholastic metaphysician and experimental chemist. ThisDoctor illuminatus, as he was styled, in consequence of his great learning and[200]piety, was born about 1236 at Palma, in the island of Majorca. He relinquished the military service and writing erotic poetry when about thirty, and devoted himself to the study of theology. Being inspired with an ardent zeal for the conversion of the Mohammedans and the Jews to Christianity, he acquired a knowledge of Arabic and Hebrew for this purpose. In pursuing his Hebrew studies Lully became acquainted with the mysteries of the Kabbalah, and, instead of converting his Kabbalistic teachers, he embraced the doctrine of “the identity of the Deity and nature;”11and there is very little doubt that the Kabbalistic method of palming their notions on the text of Scripture, by means of theGematria,NotariconandZiruph, suggested to him the invention ofthe Great Art(Ars Magna). It is therefore not to be wondered at that he had the loftiest conception of the Kabbalah, that he regarded it as a divine science and as a genuine revelation whose light is revealed to a rational soul.12It cannot be said that Lully derived as much benefit from the Mohammedans, for after making three perilous journeys to Africa to bring the sons of Ishmael to the truth of Christianity, he was stoned to death by them, June 30, 1315.The new era in the development of the Kabbalah, created by the appearance of theSohar, has continued to the present day, for nearly all those who have since espoused the doctrines of this theosophy have made theSohartheir text-book, and the principal writers have contented themselves more or less with writing commentaries on this gigantic pseudonym.1290–1350. Foremost among these is Menahem di Recanti, who was born in Recanti (Latin Recinetum) about 1290. He wrote, when about forty years of age (1330), a commentary[201]on the Pentateuch, which is little else than a commentary on theSohar. This commentary—which was first published by Jacob b. Chajim in Bomberg’s celebrated printing establishment, Venice, 1523, then again,ibid., 1545, and in Lublin, 1595—has been translated into Latin by the famous Pico della Mirandola.131320. At the beginning of the fourteenth century Joseph b. Abraham Ibn Wakkar (flour. 1290–1340) endeavoured to reconcile this theosophy with philosophy, and to this end wrote a Treatise on the cardinal doctrines of the Kabbalah, which is regarded as one of the best if not the best introductory compendium. This production, which is unpublished, and a MS. of which exists in the Bodleian Library (Codex Land. 119; described by Uri No. 384), consists of four parts orGates, subdivided into chapters, as follows:—Gate I, which is entitled,On the views of the Kabbalists respecting the Primary Cause, blessed be he, and the Sephiroth, as well as their names and order, consists of eight chapters, treating respectively on the fundamental doctrines of the emanations of theSephirothfrom the First Cause, as transmitted from Abraham and indicated in the Bible and the Rabbinic writings inGematrias(cap. i); on the unity of theSephiroth(cap. ii); the relation of theSephirothto each other, the First Cause itself being a trinity consisting of a threefold light, the number of theSephirothbeing from 10, 20, 30 and so on up to 310, stating that there is a difference of opinion amongst the Kabbalists whether the Primary Cause is within or without theSephiroth(cap. iii); on the three worlds of theSephiroth(cap. iv); on the beginninglessness of the first and necessary first Emanation, investigating the question as to how manySephiroththis property extends (cap. v); on[202]the subordination and order of theSephirothand the diagrams, mentioning, in addition to the three known ones, the figure of bridegroom and bride under the nuptial canopy (cap. vi); on the names of the Deity and the angels derived from theSephiroth(cap. vii); on the unclean (demon)Sephirothor Hells (קליפות) and their relation to the pure ones (cap. viii).Gate II, which is entitled,On the influence of the Sephiroth on the government of the world(Providence), consists of six chapters, treating respectively on the relation of theSephirothto the fundamental characteristics of Providence, such as mercy, justice, &c. (cap. i); on the corresponding relations of the uncleanSephiroth(cap. ii); on the influence of theSephirothon men, especially on the Hebrew race, and their vicissitudes (caps. iii and iv); on the possibility of theSephirothwithholding this influence (cap. v); and on the relation of theSephirothto the days of the week (cap. vi).Gate III, which is entitled,On the names of the Sephiroth among the Kabbalists, and which is the most extensive part of the work, consists of seven chapters, treating respectively on the names of the Deity, giving the sundry explanations ofאהיה אשר אהיהcurrent among the Jewish philosophers (cap.i); on the names of theSephiroth, stating that there is no uniform principle among the Kabbalists; that the appellations are derived from the Bible, the Talmud and later literati; that the greatest difference of opinion prevails among the Kabbalists as to the mode in which these ancient sources are to be interpreted, recommending the following works as reliable guides: the Talmud, Midrash Rabboth, Siphra, Siphri, Bahir, Perakim of R. Eliezer, the opinions of Nachmanides and Todros Ha-Levi Abulafia of honoured memory, but guarding against theSohar, because “many blunders occur therein”(cap. ii); on the import of the names of theSephiroth, with examples of interpretation of the Bible and Talmud[203]to serve as aids for the student who is to prosecute the work according to these examples, mentioning three explanations of the wordSephira(cap. iii); on the divine names occurring in the Pentateuch (cap. iv); on the masculine and feminine nature of theSephiroth(cap. v); this is followed (cap. vi) by an alphabetical dictionary of the names of theSephiroth, giving under each letter the Biblical and the corresponding Talmudic appellation appropriated by the Kabbalists to theSephiroth; and (cap. vii) by an index of the names of eachSephirain alphabetical order without any explanation.Gate IV, which is entitledOn the positive proofs of the existence of the Kabbalah, describes the author’s own views of the Kabbalistic system, and submits that the Kabbalist has a preference over the philosopher and astronomer by virtue of the acknowledged maxim that he has a thorough knowledge of a thing who knows most details about it. Now the Kabbalists build their system upon the distinction of words, letters, &c., &c., in the sacred writings; and they also explain certain formularies among the Rabbins, which have undoubtedly a recondite sense.141370–1500. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the Kabbalah took deep root in Spain. Its followers, who were chiefly occupied with the study ofthe Sohar, with editing some older works, and with writing Kabbalistic commentaries on the Bible, became more and more aggressive, denouncing in unmeasured terms their co-religionists who could not see the advantages of this secret doctrine. Thus Abraham b. Isaac of Granada—who wrote (1391–1409) a Kabbalistic work entitledThe Covenant of Peace, discussing[204]the mysteries of the names of God and the angels, of permutations, commutations, the vowel points and accents—declares that he who does not acknowledge God in the manner of the Kabbalah sins unwittingly, is not regarded by God, has not his special providence, and, like the abandoned and the wicked, is left to fate.15Similar in import and tone are the writings of Shem Tob Ibn Shem Tob (died 1430). In his Treatise, entitledthe Book of Faithfulness, which is an attack on the Jewish philosophers Ibn Ezra, Maimonides, Levi b. Gershon, &c., and a defence of the Kabbalah, Shem Tob denounces the students of philosophy as heretics, and maintains that the salvation of Israel depends upon the Kabbalah. He also wrote Homilies on the Pentateuch, the Feasts and Fasts, &c., in which the Kabbalistic doctrines are fully propounded.16Moses Botarel or Botarelo, also a Spaniard, wrote at this time (1409) his commentary on the famousBook Jetzira, an analysis of which is given in the foregoing part of this Essay (vide supra, p. 147, &c.) Unlike Abraham of Granada and Shem Tob, his two contemporary champions of the Kabbalah, he praises philosophy, speaks of Aristotle as of a prophet, and maintains that philosophy and the Kabbalah propound exactly the some doctrines, and that they only differ in language and in technical terms. In this commentary, which he wrote to instruct the Christian scholar Maestro Juan in the Kabbalah, Botarel shows how, by fasting, ablutions, prayer, invocation of divine and angelic names, a man may have such dreams as shall disclose to him the secrets of the future. In confirmation of his opinions he quotes such ancient authorities as Rab Ashi, Saadia Gaon, Hai Gaon, &c., whom the Kabbalah claims as its great[205]pillars.17It is almost needless to remark that these men lived long before the birth of the Kabbalah, and that this mode of palming comparatively modern opinions upon great men of remote ages, has also been adopted by advocates of other systems who were anxious to invest their views with the halo of antiquity.As countrymen of the foregoing writers, and as exponents of the opinions of older Kabbalists, are to be mentioned—(i) Jehudah Chajath who was among the large number of Jews expelled from Spain in 1493, and who wrote a commentary on the Kabbalistic work, entitledThe Divine Order;18and (ii) Abraham Ibn Sabba, who was banished with thousands of his brethren from Lisbon, 1499, and who is the author of a very extensive commentary on the Pentateuch, entitledThe Bundle of Myrrh, in which he largely avails himself of theSoharand other earlier Kabbalistic works.191463–1494. The Kabbalah, which soon after its birth became partially known to Christians through Raymond Lully, was now accessible to Christian scholars through the exertions and influence of the famous Count John Pico di Mirandola (born in 1463). This celebrated philosopher determined to fathom the mysteries of the Kabbalah, and for this purpose put himself under the tuition of a Jew, R. Jochanan Aleman, who came to Italy from Constantinople. His extraordinary intellectual powers soon enabled Mirandola to overcome the difficulties and to unravel the secrets of this theosophy. His labours were greatly rewarded; for, according to his shewing,[206]he found that20there is more Christianity in the Kabbalah than Judaism; he discovered in it proof for the doctrine of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the divinity of Christ, original sin, the expiation thereof by Christ, the heavenly Jerusalem, the fall of the angels, the order of the angels, purgatory and hell-fire; in fact the same Gospel which we find in St. Paul, Dionysius, St. Jerome and St. Augustine. As the result of his Kabbalistic studies Mirandola published, in 1486, when only twenty-four years of age,nine hundred Theses, which were placarded in Rome, and which he undertook to defend in the presence of all European scholars, whom he invited to the eternal city, promising to defray their travelling expenses. Among theseTheseswas the following, “No science yields greater proof of the divinity of Christ than magic and the Kabbalah.”21Pope Sixtus IV (1471–1484) was so delighted with it that he greatly exerted himself to have Kabbalistic writings translated into Latin for the use of divinity students.22Mirandola accordingly translated the following three works: 1, Menahem di Recanti’s Commentary on the Pentateuch, erroneously calledR. Levide Recineto (Wolf,ibid., p. 10); 2, Eliezer of Worms’חכמת הנפשde Scientia animae; and 3, Shem Tob Falaquera’sספר המעלות1455–1522. Not only did Mirandola make the Kabbalah known to the Christians in Italy, but he was the means of introducing it into Germany through John Reuchlin, the[207]father of the German Reformation. This eminent scholar,—who is also called by the Greek nameCapnion(καπνίον), orCapnio, which is a translation of his German nameReuchlin,i.e.smoke, in accordance with the fashion of the time; just asGerard, signifyingamiable, assumed the name ofDesiderius Erasmus, andSchwartzerth, denotingblack earth, took the name ofMelanchthon,—was born at Phorzheim December 28, 1455. At the age of seventeen he was called to the court of Baden, and received among the court singers in consequence of his beautiful voice. His brilliant attainments soon attracted notice, and he was sent (1473) with the young Margrave Frederick, eldest son of Charles II, afterwards bishop of Utrecht, to the celebrated high school of Paris. Here he acquired, from Hermonymus of Sparta and other fugitive Greek literati, who went to Paris after the taking of Constantinople (1453), that remarkable knowledge of Greek which enabled him so largely to amass the Attic lore and rendered him so famous through Europe. He went to Basle in 1474, delivered lectures on the Latin language and the classics, and had among his hearers nobles of high rank both from France and Germany. He went to Tübingen in 1481, where his fame secured for him the friendship of Eberhard the Bearded, who made him his private secretary and privy councillor, and as such this prince took Reuchlin with him to Rome in 1482, where he made that splendid Latin oration before the Pope and the cardinals, which elicited from his Holiness the declaration that Reuchlin deserved to be placed among the best orators of France and Italy. From Rome Eberhard took him to Florence, and it was here that Reuchlin became acquainted with the celebrated Mirandola and with the Kabbalah. But as he was appointed licentiate and assessor of the supreme court in Stuttgard, the new residence of Eberhard, on his return in 1484, and as the order of Dominicans elected him as their proctor in the whole of Germany,[208]Reuchlin had not time to enter at once upon the study of Hebrew and Aramaic, which are the key to the Kabbalah, and he had reluctantly to wait till 1492, when he accompanied Eberhard to the imperial court at Ling. Here he became acquainted with R. Jacob b. Jechiel Loanz, a learned Hebrew, and court physician of Frederick III, from whom he learned Hebrew.23Whereupon Reuchlin at once betook himself to the study ofthe Kabbalah, and within two years of his beginning to learn the language in which it is written, his first Kabbalistic treatise, entitledDe Verbo Mirifico(Basle, 1494), appeared. This treatise is of the greatest rarity, and the following analysis of it is given by Franck. It is in the form of a dialogue between an Epicurean philosopher named Sidonius, a Jew named Baruch, and the author, who is introduced by his Greek name Capnio, and consists of three books, according to the number of speakers.Book I, the exponent of which is Baruch the Jewish Kabbalist, is occupied with a refutation of the Epicurean doctrines; and simply reproduces the arguments generally urged against this system, for which reason we omit any further description of it.Book II endeavours to shew that all wisdom and true philosophy are derived from the Hebrews, that Plato, Pythagoras and Zoroaster borrowed their ideas from the Bible, and that traces of the Hebrew language are to be found in the liturgies and sacred books of all nations. Then follows an explanation of the four divine names, which are shown to have been transplanted into the systems of Greek philosophy. The first and most distinguished of themאהיה אשר אהיהego sum qui sum( Exod. iii, 12 ), is translated in the Platonic philosophy byτὸὄντωςὢν. The second divine name, which we translate byהואHe,i.e., the sign of unchangeableness and[209]of the eternal idea of the Deity, is also to be found among the Greek philosophers in the termταυτὸν, which is opposed toθατερὸν. The third name of God used in Holy Writ isאשFire. In this form God appeared in the burning bush when he first manifested himself to Moses. The prophets describe him as a burning fire, and John the Baptist depicts him as such when he says, “I baptize you with water, but he who cometh after me shall baptize you with fire.” ( Matt. iii, 11 .) The fire of the Hebrew prophets is the same as the ether (αἰθὴρ) mentioned in the hymns of Orpheus. But these three names are in reality only one, showing to us the divine nature in three different aspects. Thus God calls himselfthe Being, because every existence emanates from him; he calls himselfFire, because it is he who illuminates and animates all things and he is alwaysHe, because he always remains like himself amidst the infinite variety of his works. Now just as there are names which express the nature of the Deity, so there are names which refer to his attributes, and these are theten Sephiroth. If we look away from every attribute and every definite point of view in which the divine subsistence may be contemplated, if we endeavour to depict the absolute Being as concentrating himself within himself, and not affording us any explicable relation to our intellect, he is then described by a name which it is forbidden to pronounce, by the thrice holy Tetragrammaton, the name Jehovah (יהוה)the Shem Ha-Mephorash(שם המפורש).There is no doubt that the tetrad (τετρακτύς) of Pythagoras is an imitation of the Hebrew Tetragrammaton, and that the worship of the decade has simply been invented in honour of theten Sephiroth. The four letters composing this name represent the four fundamental constituents of the body (i.e., heat, cold, dryness and humidity), the four geometrical principal points (i.e., the point, the line, flat and body), the four notes of the musical scale, the four rivers in the earthly[210]paradise, the four symbolical figures in the vision of Ezekiel, &c., &c., &c. Moreover if we look at these four letters separately we shall find that each of them has equally a recondite meaning. The first letterי, which also stands for the numberten, and which by its form reminds us of the mathematical point, teaches us that God is the beginning and end of all things. The numberfive, expressed byהthe second letter, shows us the union of God with nature—of God inasmuch as he is depicted by the number three,i.e., the Trinity; and of visible nature, inasmuch as it is represented by Plato and Pythagoras under the dual. The numbersix, expressed byו, the third letter, which is likewise revered in the Pythagorean school, is formed by the combination of one, two, and three, the symbol of all perfection. Moreover the numbersixis the symbol of the cube, the bodies (solida), or the world. Hence it is evident that the world has in it the imprint of divine perfection. The fourth and last letter of this divine name (ה) is like the second, represents the numberfive, and here symbolizes the human and rational soul, which is the medium between heaven and earth, just as five is the centre of the decade, the symbolic expression of the totality of things.Book III, the exponent of which is Capnio, endeavours to shew that the most essential doctrines of Christianity are to be found by the same method. Let a few instances of this method suffice. Thus the doctrine of the Trinity is to be found in the first verse of Genesis. If the Hebrew wordבראwhich is translatedcreated, be examined, and if each of the three letters composing this word be taken as the initial of a separate word, we obtain the expressionsבן רוח אבSon,Spirit,Father. Upon the same principle we find the two persons of the Trinity in the words, “the stone which the builders refused is become the heed stone of the corner” ( Ps. cxviii, 22 ), inasmuch as the three letters composing the[211]wordאבןstone, are to be divided intoאב בןFather,Son. Orpheus, in his hymn on the night, described the Trinity of the New Testament in the words,νὺξ, οὐρανὸς, αἰθὴρ, for night which begets everything can only designatethe Father; heaven, that olyphus which in its boundlessness embraces all things, and which proceeded from the night, signifiesthe Son; whilst ether, which the ancient poet also designatesfiery breath, is theHoly Ghost. The name Jesus in Hebrewי״ה״ש״ו״הtheπενταγράμματονyields the nameיהוהJehovah; and theשwhich in the language of the Kabbalah is the symbol of fire or light, which St. Jerome, in his mystical exposition of the alphabet, has made the sign of theΛόγος. This mysterious name therefore contains a whole revelation, inasmuch as it shows us that Jesus is God himself, the Light or theLogos. Even the cross, which is the symbol of Christianity, is plainly indicated in the Old Testament, by the tree of life which God planted in the midst of the garden; by the praying attitude of Moses, when he raised his hands towards heaven in his intercession for Israel during the combat with Amalek; and by the tree which converted the bitter waters into sweet in the wilderness of Marah.24The Treatisede Verbo Mirificois, however, only an introduction to another work on the same subject which Reuchlin published twenty-two years later, entitledDe Arte Cabalistica. Hagenau, 1516. This Treatise, like the first, is in the form of a dialogue between a Mohammedan named Marrianus, a Pythagorean Philosopher named Philolaus, and a Jewish doctor named Simon. The dialogue is held in Frankfort, where the Jew resides, to whom the Mohammedan and Pythagorean resort to be initiated into the mysteries of the Kabbalah. The whole is a more matured exposition and elaboration of the ideas hinted at in his first work.[212]The Kabbalah, according to Reuchlin, is a symbolical reception of Divine revelation; and a distinction is to be made betweenCabalici, to whom belongs heavenly inspiration, their disciplesCabalaai, and their imitatorsCabalistae. The design of the Kabbalah is to propound the relations of the absolute Creator to the creature. God is the Creator of all beings which emanated from him, and he implanted aspirations in them to attain actual communion with him. In order that feeble man might attain this communion, God revealed himself to mankind in various ways, but especially to Moses. This Divine revelation to Moses contains far more than appears on the surface of the Pentateuch. There is a recondite wisdom concealed in it which distinguishes it from other codes of morals and precepts. There are in the Pentateuch many pleonasms and repetitions of the same things and words, and as we cannot charge God with having inserted useless and superfluous words in the Holy Scriptures, we must believe that something more profound is contained in them, to which the Kabbalah gives the key.This key consists in permutations, commutations, &c., &c. But this act of exchanging and arranging letters, and of interpreting for the edification of the soul the Holy Scriptures, which we have received from God as a divine thing not to be understood by the multitude, was not communicated by Moses to everybody, but to the elect, such as Joshua, and so by tradition it came to the seventy interpreters. This gift is calledKabbalah. God, out of love to his people, has revealed hidden mysteries to some of them, and these have found the living spirit in the dead letter; that is to say, the Scriptures consist of separate letters, visible signs which stand in a certain relation to the angels as celestial and spiritual emanations from God; and by pronouncing them, the latter also are affected. To a true Kabbalist, who has an insight into the whole connection of the terrestrial with the celestial, these[213]signs thus put together are the means of placing him in close union with spirits, who are thereby bound to fulfil his wishes.25The extraordinary influence which Reuchlin’s Kabbalistic Treatises exercised upon the greatest thinkers of the time and upon the early reformers may be judged of from the unmeasured terms of praise which they bestowed upon their author. The Treatises were regarded as heavenly communications, revealing new divine wisdom. Conrad Leontarius, writing to Wimpheling on the subject, says—“I never saw anything more beautiful or admirable than this work (i.e.,De Verbo Mirifico), which easily convinces him who reads it that no philosopher, whether Jew or Christian, is superior to Reuchlin.” Aegidius, general of the Eremites, wrote to the holy Augustine “that Reuchlin had rendered him, as well as the rest of mankind, happy by his works, which had made known to all a thing hitherto unheard of.” Philip Beroaldus, the younger, sent him word “that Pope Leo X had read his Pythagorean book greedily, as he did all good books; afterwards the Cardinal de Medici had done so, and he himself should soon enjoy it.”26Such was the interest which this newly-revealed Kabbalah created among Christians, that not only learned men but statesmen and warriors began to study the oriental languages, in order to be able to fathom the mysteries of this theosophy.1450–1498. Whilst the Kabbalah was gaining such high favour amongst Christians both in Italy and Germany, through the exertions of Mirandola and Reuchlin, a powerful voice was raised among the Jews againstthe Sohar, the very Bible of this theosophy. Elia del Medigo, born at Candia, then in Venetia, 1450, of a German literary family, professor of[214]philosophy in the University of Padua, teacher of Pico de Mirandola, and a scholar of the highest reputation both among his Jewish brethren and among Christians, impugned the authority ofthe Sohar. In his philosophical Treatise on the nature of Judaism as a harmonizer between religion and philosophy, entitledAn Examination of the Law(בחינת הדת), which he wrote December 29, 1491, he puts into the mouth of an antagonist to the Kabbalah the following three arguments against the genuineness of theSohar: 1, Neither the Talmud, nor the Gaonim and Rabbins knew anything of theSoharor of its doctrines; 2, TheSoharwas published at a very late period; and 3, Many anachronisms occur in it, inasmuch as it describes later Amoraic authorities as having direct intercourse with the Tanaite R. Simon b. Jochai who belongs to an earlier period.271522–1570. The voice of Elia del Medigo and others, however, had no power to check the rapid progress of the Kabbalah, which had now found its way from Spain and Italy into Palestine and Poland, and penetrated all branches of life and literature. Passing over the host of minor advocates and teachers, we shall mention the two great masters in Palestine, who formed two distinct schools, distinguished by the prominence which they respectively gave to certain doctrines of the Kabbalah. The first of these is Moses Cordovero, also calledRemak=רמ׳קfrom the acrostic of his nameקורדואירוR. Moses Cordovero. He was born in Cordova, 1522, studied the Kabbalah under his learned brother-in-law, Solomon Aleavez, and very soon became so distinguished as a Kabbalist and author that his fame travelled to Italy, where his works were greedily bought. His principal works are: 1, An Introduction to the Kabbalah, entitledA SombreorSweet[215]Light(אור נערב) first published in Venice, 1587, then in Cracow, 1647, and in Fürth, 1701; 2, Kabbalistic reflections and comments on ninety-nine passages of the Bible, entitledThe Book of Retirement(ספר נרושין), published in Venice, 1543; and 3, A large Kabbalistic work entitledThe Garden of Pomegranates(פרדס רמונים), which consists of thirteen sections or gates (שערים) subdivided into chapters, and discussesthe Sephiroth, the Divine names, the import and significance of the letters, &c., &c. It was first published in Cracow, 1591. Excerpts of it have been translated into Latin by Bartolocci,Bibliotheca Magna Rabbinica, vol. iv, p. 231, &c., and Knorr von Rosenroth,Tractatus de Anima ex libro Pardes Rimmonimin hisKabbalaDenudata, Sulzbach, 1677.28The peculiar feature of Cordovero is that he is chiefly occupied with the scientific speculations of the Kabbalah, orthe speculative Kabbalah(קבלה עיונית), as it is called in the modern terminology of this esoteric doctrine, in contra-distinction tothe wonder-working Kabbalah(קבלה מעשית), keeping aloof to a great extent from the extravagances which we shall soon have to notice. In this respect therefore he represents the Kabbalah in its primitive state, as may be seen from the following specimen of his lucubrations on the nature of the Deity. “The knowledge of the Creator is different from that of the creature, since in the case of the latter, knowledge and the thing known are distinct, thus leading to subjects which are again separate from him. This is described by the three expressions—cogitation, the cogitator and the cogitated object. Now the Creator is himself knowledge, knowing and the known object. His knowledge does not consist in the fact that he directs his thoughts to things[216]without him, since in comprehending and knowing himself, he comprehends and knows everything which exists. There is nothing which is not united with him, and which he does not find in his own substance. He is the archetype of all things existing, and all things are in him in their purest and most perfect form; so that the perfection of the creatures consists in the support whereby they are united to the primary source of his existence, and they sink down and fall from that perfect and lofty position in proportion to their separation from him.”291534–1572. The opposite to this school is the one founded by Isaac Luria or Loria, also calledAri=אר״יfrom the initials of his nameהאשכנזי ר׳ יצחקR. Isaac Ashkanazi. He was born at Jerusalem 1534, and, having lost his father when very young, was taken by his mother to Kahira, where he was put by his rich uncle under the tuition of the best Jewish master. Up to his twenty-second year he was a diligent student of the Talmud and the Rabbinic lore, and distinguished himself in these departments of learning in a most remarkable manner. He then lived in retirement for about seven years to give free scope to his thoughts and meditations, but he soon found that simple retirement from collegiate studies did not satisfy him. He therefore removed to the banks of the Nile, where he lived in a sequestered cottage for several years, giving himself up entirely to meditations and reveries. Here he had constant interviews with the prophet Elias, who communicated to him sublime doctrines. Here, too, his soul ascended to heaven whenever he was asleep, and in the celestial regions held converse with the souls of the great teachers of bygone days. When thirty-six years of age (1570) the Prophet Elias appeared to him again and told him to go to Palestine, where his successor was awaiting him. Obedient to the command, he went to Safet, where he gathered[217]round him ten disciples, visited the sepulchres of ancient teachers, and there, by prostrations and prayers, obtained from their spirits all manner of revelations, so much so that he was convinced he was the Messiah b. Joseph and that he was able to perform all sorts of miracles. It was this part of the Kabbalah,i.e., the ascetic and miraculous (כבלה מעשית), which Loria taught. His sentiments he delivered orally, as he himself did not write anything, except perhaps some marginal notes of a critical import in older books and MSS. His disciples treasured up his marvellous sayings, whereby they performed miracles and converted thousands to the doctrines of this theosophy.1543–1620. The real exponent of Loria’s Kabbalistic system is his celebrated disciple Chajim Vital, a descendant of a Calabrian family, who died in 1620 at the age of seventy-seven. After the demise of his teacher, Chajim Vital diligently collected all the MS. notes of the lectures which Loria’s disciples had written down, from which, together with his own jottings, he produced the gigantic and famous system of the Kabbalah, entitledthe Tree of Life(עץ החיים). This work, over which Vital laboured thirty years, was at first circulated in MS. copies, and every one of the Kabbalistic disciples had to pledge himself, under pain of excommunication, not to allow a copy to be made for a foreign land; so that for a time all the Codd. remained in Palestine. At last, however, this Thesaurus of the Kabbalah, which properly consists of six works, was published by J. Satanow at Zolkiev, 1772. New editions of it appeared in Korez, 1785; Sklow, 1800; Dobrowne, 1804; Stilikow, 1818; and Knorr von Rosenroth has translated into Latin a portion of that part of the great work which treats onthe doctrine of the metempsychosis(הגלגולים).301558–1560. The circulation of Loria’s work which gave[218]an extraordinary impetus to the Kabbalah, and which gave rise to the new school and a separate congregation in Palestine, was not the only favourable circumstance which had arisen to advance and promulgate the esoteric doctrine. TheSohar, which since its birth had been circulated in MS., was now for the first time printed in Mantua, and thousands of people who had hitherto been unable to procure the MS. were thus enabled to possess themselves of copies.31It is, however, evident that with the increased circulation of these two Bibles of the Kabbalah, as theSoharand Loria’sEtz Chajimare called, there was an increased cry on the part of learned Jews against the doctrines propounded in them. Isaac b. Immanuel de Lates, the Rabbi of Pesaro, and the great champion for the Kabbalah, who prefixed a commendatory epistle to theSohar, tells us most distinctly that some Rabbins wanted to prevent the publication of theSohar, urging that it ought to be kept secret or be burned, because it tends to heretical doctrines.321571–1648. Of the numerous opponents to the Kabbalah which theSoharand Loria’s work called forth, Leo de Modena was by far the most daring, the most outspoken and the most powerful. This eminent scholar who is known to the Christian world by his celebratedHistory of the Rites, Customs and Manners of the Jews, which was originally written in Italian, published in Padua, 1640, and which has been translated into Latin, English, French, Dutch, &c., attacked the Kabbalah in two of his works. His first onslaught is on the doctrine of metempsychosis in his Treatise entitledBen David. He composed this Treatise in 1635–36, at the request of David Finzi, of Egypt, and he demonstrates therein that this doctrine[219]is of Gentile origin, and was rejected by the great men of the Jewish faith in bygone days, refuting at the same time the philosophico-theological arguments advanced in its favour.33It is, however, his second attack on this esoteric doctrine, in his work entitledThe Roaring Lion(ארי נוהם), which is so damaging to the Kabbalah. In this Treatise—which Leo de Modena composed in 1639, at the advanced age of sixty-eight, to reclaim Joseph Chamiz, a beloved disciple of his, who was an ardent follower of the Kabbalah—he shows that the books which propound this esoteric doctrine, and which are palmed upon ancient authorities, are pseudonymous; that the doctrines themselves are mischievous; and that the followers of this system are inflated with proud notions, pretending to know the nature of God better than anyone else, and to possess the nearest and best way of approaching the Deity.341623. The celebrated Hebraist, Joseph Solomon del Medigo (born 1591, died 1637), a contemporary of the preceding writer, also employed his vast stores of erudition to expose this system. Having been asked by R. Serach for his views of the Kabbalah, del Medigo, in a masterly letter, written in 1623, shows up the folly of this esoteric doctrine, and the unreasonableness of the exegetical rules, whereby the followers of this system pretend to deduce it from the Bible.351635. We have seen that the information about the Kabbalah, which Mirandola and Reuchlin imparted to Christians, was chiefly derived from the writings of Recanti and Gikatilla. Now that theSoharhad been published, Joseph de Voisin[220]determined to be the first to make some portions of it accessible to those Christian readers who did not understand the Aramaic in which this Thesaurus is written. Accordingly he translated some extracts of theSoharwhich treat of the nature of the human soul.361652–1654. Just at the very time when some of the most distinguished Jews exposed the pretensions of the Kabbalah, and denounced the fanciful and unjustifiable rules of interpretation whereby its advocates tried to evolve it from the letters of the revealed law, the celebrated Athanasius Kircher, in a most learned and elaborate treatise on this subject, maintained that the Kabbalah was introduced into Egypt by no less a person than the patriarch Abraham; and that from Egypt it gradually issued all over the East, and intermixed with all religions and systems of philosophy. What is still more extraordinary is that this learned Jesuit, in thus exalting the Kabbalah, lays the greatest stress on that part of it which developed itself afterwards, viz., the combinations, transpositions and permutations of the letters, and does not discriminate between it and the speculations about theEn Soph,the Sephiroth, &c., which were the original characteristics of this theosophy.37The amount of Eastern lore, however, which Kircher has amassed in his work will always remain a noble monument to the extensive learning of this Jesuit.1645–1676. The wonder-working or practical branch of the Kabbalah (קבלה מעשית), as it is called, so elaborately propounded and defended by Kircher, which consists in the transpositions of the letters of the sundry divine names, &c., and which as we have seen constituted no part of the original Kabbalah, had now largely laid hold on the minds and fancies[221]of both Jews and Christians, and was producing among the former the most mournful and calamitous effects. The famous Kabbalist, Sabbatai Zevi, who was born in Smyrna, July, 1641, was the chief actor in this tragedy. When a child he was sent to a Rabbinic school, and instructed in the Law, the Mishna, the Talmud, the Midrashim, and the whole cycle of Rabbinic lore. So great were his intellectual powers, and so vast the knowledge he acquired, that when fifteen he betook himself to the study of the Kabbalah, rapidly mastered its mysteries, became peerless in his knowledge of “those things which were revealed and those things which were hidden;” and at the age of eighteen obtained the honourable appellationsage(חכם), and delivered public lectures, expounding the divine law and the esoteric doctrine before crowded audiences. At the age of twenty-four he gave himself out as the Messiah, the Son of David, and the Redeemer of Israel, pronouncing publicly the Tetragrammaton, which was only allowed to the high priests during the existence of the second Temple. Though the Jewish sages of Smyrna excommunicated him for it, he travelled to Salonica, Athens, Morea and Jerusalem, teaching the Kabbalah, proclaiming himself as the Messiah, anointing prophets and converting thousands upon thousands. So numerous were the believers in him, that in many places trade was entirely stopped; the Jews wound up their affairs, disposed of their chattels and made themselves ready to be redeemed from their captivity and led by Sabbatai Zevi back to Jerusalem. The consuls of Europe were ordered to enquire into this extraordinary movement, and the governors of the East reported to the Sultan the cessation of commerce. Sabbatai Zevi was then arrested by order of the Sultan, Mohammed IV, and taken before him at Adrianople. The Sultan spoke to him as follows—“I am going to test thy Messiahship. Three poisoned arrows shall be shot into thee, and if they do not kill thee, I too will believe that thou art the[222]Messiah.” He saved himself by embracing Islamism in the presence of the Sultan, who gave him the nameEffendi, and appointed himKapidgi Bashi. Thus ended the career of the Kabbalist Sabbatai Zevi, after having ruined thousands upon thousands of Jewish families.381677–1684. Whether the learned Knorr Baron von Rosenroth knew of the extravagances of Sabbatai Zevi or not is difficult to say. At all events this accomplished Christian scholar believed that Simon b. Jochai was the author of theSohar, that he wrote it under divine inspiration, and that it is most essential to the elucidation of the doctrines of Christianity. With this conviction he determined to master the difficulties connected with the Kabbalistic writings, in order to render the principal works of this esoteric doctrine accessible to his Christian brethren. For, although Lully, Mirandola, Reuchlin and Kircher had already done much to acquaint the Christian world with the secrets of the Kabbalah, none of these scholars had given translations of any portions of theSohar.Knorr Baron von Rosenroth, therefore put himself under the tuition of R. Meier Stern, a learned Jew, and with his assistance was enabled to publish the celebrated work entitled theUnveiled Kabbalah(Kabbala Denudata), in two large volumes, the first of which was printed at Sulzbach, 1677–78, and the second at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, 1684, giving a Latin translation of the Introduction to and the following portion of theSohar—theBook of Mysteries(ספר דצניעותא); theGreat Assembly(אדרא רבא); theSmall Assembly(אדרא זוטא); Joseph Gikatilla’sGate of Light(שער אורה); theDoctrine of Metempsychosis(הגלגולים), and theTree of Life(עץ חיים), of Chajim Vital; theGarden of Pomegranates(פרדס רימונים), of Moses Cordovero; theHouse of the Lord(בית אלהים), and theGate of Heaven(שער השמים), of[223]Abraham Herera; theValley of the King(עמק המלך), of Naphtah b. Jacob; theVision of the Priest(מראה כהן), of Issachar Beer b. Naphtali Cohen, &c., &c., with elaborate annotations, glossaries and indices. The only drawback to this gigantic work is that it is without any system, and that it mixes up in one all the earlier developments of the Kabbalah with the later productions. Still the criticism passed upon it by Buddeus, that it is a “confused and obscure work, in which the necessary and the unnecessary, the useful and the useless are mixed up and thrown together as it were into one chaos,”39is rather too severe; and it must be remembered that if theKabbala Denudatadoes not exhibit a regular system of this esoteric doctrine, it furnishes much material for it. Baron von Rosenroth has also collected all the passages of the New Testament which contain similar doctrines to those propounded by the Kabbalah.
It now remains for us to describe the development of the Kabbalah, to point out the different schools into which its followers are divided, and to detail the literature which this theosophy called into existence in the course of time. The limits of this Essay demand that this should be done as briefly as possible.
The great land mark in the development of the Kabbalah is the birth ofthe Sohar, which divides the history of this theosophy into two periods, viz., the pre-Soharperiod and the post-Soharperiod. During these two periods different schools developed themselves, which are classified by the erudite historian, Dr. Graetz, as follows:—1
I.—THE SCHOOL OF GERONA, so called from the fact that the founders of it were born in this place and established the school in it. To this school, which is the cradle of the Kabbalah, belong
1. Isaac the Blind (flour. 1190–1210), denominated the Father of the Kabbalah. His productions have become a prey to time, and only a few fragments have survived as quotations in other theosophic works. From these we learn that he espoused the despised doctrine of metempsychosis as an article of creed, and that from looking into a man’s face, he could tell whether the individual possessed a new soul from the celestial world of spirits, or whether he had an old soul which has been migrating from body to body and has still to accomplish its purity before its return to rest in its heavenly home.[190]
2. Azariel and Ezra, disciples of Isaac the Blind. The former of these is the author of the celebratedCommentary on the Ten Sephiroth, which is the first Kabbalistic production, and of which we have given an analysis in the second part of this Essay (vide supra, p. 176). Of Ezra next to nothing is known beyond the fact that his great intimacy with Azariel led some writers to identify the two names.
3. Jehudah b. Jakar, a contemporary of the foregoing Kabbalists. No works of his have survived, and he is only known as the teacher of the celebrated Nachmanides and from being quoted as a Kabbalistic authority.
4. Moses Nachmanides, born in Gerona about 1195, the pupil of Azariel, Ezra, and Jehudah Ibn Jakar. It was the conversion of this remarkable and famous Talmudist to this newly-born Kabbalah which gave to it an extraordinary importance and rapid spread amongst the numerous followers of Nachmanides. It is related that, notwithstanding all the efforts of his teachers, Nachmanides at first was decidedly adverse to this system; and that one day the Kabbalist who most exerted himself to convert him was caught in a house of ill fame and condemned to death. He requested Nachmanides to visit him on the Sabbath, being the day fixed for his execution; and when Nachmanides reproved him for his sins, the Kabbalist declared that he was innocent, and that he would appear at his house on this very day, after the execution, and partake with him the Sabbath meal. He proved true to his promise, as by means of the Kabbalistic mysteries he effected that, and an ass was executed in his stead, and he himself was suddenly transposed into Nachmanides’ house. From that time Nachmanides avowed himself a disciple of the Kabbalah, and was initiated into its mysteries.2His numerous writings, an account of which will be found in Alexander’s edition of[191]Kitto’s Cyclopædia, underNachmanides, are pervaded with the tenets of this system. In the Introduction to his Commentary on the Pentateuch he remarks—“We possess a faithful tradition that the whole Pentateuch consists of names of the Holy One, blessed be he; for the words may be divided into sacred names in another sense, so that it is to be taken as an allegory. Thus the words—בראשית ברא אלהיםin Gen. i, 1 , may be redivided into other words,ex. gr.בראש יתברא אלהים.In like manner is the whole Pentateuch, which consists of nothing but transpositions and numerals of divine names.”3
5. TheTreatise on the Emanations(מסכת אצילות), supposed to have been written by R. Isaac Nasir in the first half of the twelfth century. The following is an analysis of this production. Based upon the passage—“Jaresiah and Eliah and Zichri, the sons of Jeroham” ( 1 Chron. viii, 27 ), which names theMidrashassigns to the prophet Eliah (Shemoth Rabba, cap. xl), this prophet is introduced as speaking and teaching under the four names of Eliah b. Josep, Jaresiah b. Joseph, Zechariah b. Joseph and Jeroham b. Joseph. Having stated that the secret and profounder views of the Deity are only to be communicated to the God-fearing, and that none but the pre-eminently pious can enter into the temple of this higher gnosis, the prophet Elias propounds the system of this secret doctrine, which consists in the following maxims—“I. God at first created light and darkness, the one for the pious and the other for the wicked, darkness having come to pass by the divine limitation of light. II. God produced and destroyed sundry worlds, which, like ten trees planted upon a narrow space, contend about the sap of the soil, and finally perish altogether. III. God manifested himself in four worlds,[192]viz.—Atzilah,Beriah,JetziraandAsiah, corresponding to the Tetragrammatonיהוה. In theAtzilatic luminous worldis the divine majesty, the Shechinah. In theBriatic worldare the souls of the saints, all the blessings, the throne of the Deity, he who sits on it in the form of Achtenal (the crown of God, the firstSephira), and the seven different luminous and splendid regions. In theJetziraticworld are the sacred animals from the vision of Ezekiel, the ten classes of angels with their princes, who are presided over by the fiery Metatron, the spirits of men, and the accessory work of the divine chariot. In theAssiaticworld are the Ophanim, the angels who receive the prayers, who are appointed over the will of man, who control the action of mortals, who carry on the struggle against evil, and who are presided over by the angelic prince Synandelphon. IV. The world was founded in wisdom and understanding ( Prov. iii, 19 ), and God in his knowledge originated fifty gates of understanding. V. God created the world by means of theten Sephiroth, which are both the agencies and qualities of the Deity. Theten Sephirothare called Crown, Wisdom, Intelligence, Mercy, Fear, Beauty, Victory, Majesty and Kingdom: they are ideal and stand above the concrete world.”4
6. Jacob ben Sheshet of Gerona (flour. 1243). He wrote a Kabbalistic Treatise in rhymed prose, entitledשער השמיםthe Gate of Heaven, after Gen. xxviii, 17 . It was first published by Gabriel Warshawer in his collection of eight Kabbalistic Essays, calledספר לקוטימ בקבלה. Warsaw, 1798. It forms the third Essay in this collection, and is erroneously entitledלקוטי שם טובthe Collection of Shem Tob. It has now been published under its proper title, from a codex by[193]Mordecai Mortera, in the Hebrew Essays and Reviews, entitledOzar Nechmad(אוצר נחמד) vol. iii, p. 153, &c. Vienna, 1860.
The characteristic feature of this school, which is the creative school, is that it for the first time established and developed the doctrine ofthe En Soph(אין סוף),the Sephiroth(ספירות) orEmanations, metempsychosis (סודהעבור) with the doctrine of retribution (סוד הגמול) belonging thereto, and a peculiar christology, whilst the Kabbalistic mode of exegesis is still subordinate in it.
II.—THE SCHOOL OF SEGOVIA, so called because it was founded by Jacob of Segovia, and its disciples were either natives of this place or lived in it. The chief representatives of this school are—
1, Isaac, and 2, Jacob, junior, the two sons of Jacob Segovia, and 3, Moses b. Simon of Burgos, who are only known by sundry fragments preserved in Kabbalistic writings.
4. Todras b. Joseph Ha-Levi Abulafia, born 1234, died circa 1305. This celebrated Kabbalist occupied a distinguished position as physician and financier in the court of Sancho IV, King of Castile, and was a great favourite of Queen Maria de Moline; he formed one of thecortégewhen this royal pair met Philip IV,the Fair, King of France in Bayonne (1290), and his advocacy of this theosophy secured for the doctrines of the Kabbalah a kindly reception. His works on the Kabbalah are—(a) An Exposition of the Talmudic Hagadoth, entitledאוצר הכבוד, (b) A Commentary on Ps. xix, and (c) A Commentary on the Pentateuch, in which he propounds the tenets of the Kabbalah. These works, however, have not as yet been printed.5
5. Shem Tob b. Abraham Ibn Gaon, born 1283, died circa 1332, who wrote many Kabbalistic works.
6. Isaac of Akko (flour. 1290) author of the Kabbalistic[194]Commentary on the Pentateuch, entitledמאירת עיניםnot yet printed, with the exception of an extract published by Jellinek.6
The characteristic of this school is that it is devoted to exegesis, and its disciples endeavoured to interpret the Bible and the Hagada in accordance with the doctrines of the Kabbalah.
III.—THE QUASI-PHILOSOPHIC SCHOOL of Isaac b. Abraham Ibn-Latif, or Allatif. He was born about 1270 and died about 1390. Believing that to view Judaism from an exclusively philosophical stand-point does not shew “the right way to the sanctuary,” he endeavoured to combine philosophy with Kabbalah. “He laid greater stress than his predecessors on the close connection and intimate union between the spiritual and material world, between the Creator and the creation—God is in all and everything is in him. The human soul rises to the world-soul in earnest prayer, and unites itself therewith ‘in a kiss,’ operates upon the Deity and brings down a divine blessing upon the nether world. But as every mortal is not able to offer such a spiritual and divinely operative prayer, the prophets, who were the most perfect men, had to pray for the people, for they alone knew the power of prayer. Isaac Allatif illustrated the unfolding and self-revelation of the Deity in the world of spirits by mathematical forms. The mutual relation thereof is the same as that of the point extending and thickening into a line, the line into the flat, the flat into the expanded body. Henceforth the Kabbalists used points and lines in their mystical diagrams as much as they employed the numerals and letters of the alphabet.7
IV. THE SCHOOL OF ABULAFIA, founded by Abraham ben Samuel Abulafia, is represented by—[195]
1. Abulafia, the founder of it, who was born at Saragossa in 1240, and died circa 1292. For thirty years he devoted himself to the study of the Bible, the Talmud, philology, philosophy, and medicine, making himself master of the philosophical writings of Saadia, Bachja b. Joseph, Maimonides, and Antoli, as well as of the Kabbalistic works which were then in existence. Finding no comfort in philosophy, he gave himself entirely to the mysteries of the Kabbalah in their most fantastic extremes, as the ordinary doctrine ofthe Sephirothdid not satisfy him. The ordinary doctrine ofthe Sephirothhe simply regarded asa ten unityinstead of the Christianthree unity. Through divine inspiration, he discovered a higher Kabbalah, by means of which the soul can not only hold the most intimate communion with the world-soul, but obtain the prophetic faculty. The simple intercourse with the world of spirits, which is effected by separating the words of Holy Writ, and especially those of the divine name, into letters, and by regarding each letter as a distinct word (נוטריקון), or by transposing the component parts of words in every possible way to obtain thereby peculiar expressions (צירוף), or by taking the letters of each word as numerals (גמטריא), is not sufficient.To have the prophetic faculty and to see visions ought to be the chief aim, and these are secured by leading an ascetic life, by banishing all worldly feelings, by retiring into a quiet closet, by dressing oneself in white apparel, by putting on the fringed garment and the phylacteries; by sanctifying the soul so as to be fit to hold converse with the Deity; by pronouncing the letters composing the divine name with certain modulations of the voice and divine pauses; by exhibiting the divine names in various diagrams under divers energetic movements, turnings, and bendings of the body, till the voice gets confused and the heart is filled with fervour. When one has gone through these practices and is in such a condition, the fulness of the[196]Godhead is shed abroad in the human soul: the soul then unites itself with the divine soul in a kiss, and prophetic revelations follow as a matter of course.
He went to Italy, published, in Urbino (1279), a prophecy, in which he records his conversations with the Deity, calling himself Raziel and Zechariah, because these names are numerically the same as his own name, Abraham,8and preached the doctrines of the Kabbalah. In 1281 he had a call from God to convert the Pope, Martin IV, to Judaism, for which he was thrown into prison, and narrowly escaped a martyr’s death by fire. Seeing that his Holiness refused to embrace the Jewishreligion, Abulafia went to Sicily, accompanied by several of his disciples. In Messina another revelation from God was vouchsafed to him, announcing to him that he was the Messiah, which he published 1284. This apocalypse also announced that the restoration of Israel would take place in 1296; and so great was the faith which the people reposed in it, that thousands prepared themselves for returning to Palestine. Those, however, who did not believe in the Messiahship and in the Kabbalah of Abulafia, raised such a violent storm of opposition against him, that he had to escape to the island of Comino, near Malta (circa1288), where he remained for some time, and wrote sundry Kabbalistic works.
His Kabbalistic system may be gathered from the following analysis of his Rejoinder to R. Solomon ben Abraham ben Adereth, who attacked his doctrines and Messianic as well as prophetic pretensions. “There are,” says Abulafia, “four sources of knowledge—I, The five senses, or experimental maxims; II, Abstract numbers orà priorimaxims; III, The generally acknowledged maxims, orconsensus communis;[197]and IV, Transmitted doctrines or traditional maxims. The Kabbalistic tradition, which goes back to Moses, is divisible into two parts, the first of which is superior to the second in value, but subordinate to it in the order of study. The first part is occupied with the knowledge of the Deity, obtained by means of the doctrine ofthe Sephiroth, as propounded in theBook Jetzira. The followers of this part are related to those philosophers who strive to know God from his works, and the Deity stands before them objectively as a light beaming into their understanding. These, moreover, give tothe Sephirothsundry names to serve as signs for recognition; and some of this class differ but little from Christians, inasmuch as they substitute adecadefor thetriad, which they identify with God, and which they learned in the school of Isaac the Blind.
“The second and more important part strives to know God by means of the twenty-two letters of the alphabet, from which, together with the vowel points and accents, those sundry divine names are combined, which elevate the Kabbalists to the degree of prophecy, drawing out their spirit, and causing it to be united with God and to become one with the Deity. This is gradually effected in the following manner. Theten Sephirothsublimate gradually to the upperSephira, calledthought,crown, orprimordial air, which is the root of all the otherSephiroth, and reposes in the creativeEn Soph. In the same manner all the numerals are to be traced back to one, and all the trees, together with their roots and branches, are converted into their original earth as soon as they are thrown into the fire. To theten Sephiroth, consisting of upper, middle and lower, correspond the letters of the alphabet, which are divided into three rows of ten letters each, the final letters inclusive, beginning and ending withAleph; as well as the human body, with its head, the two arms, loins, testicles, liver, heart, brain, all of which unite into a higher unity and become one in the activeνοῦς, which in its[198]turn again unites itself with God, as the unity to which everything must return.
“Theten Sephirothare after a higher conception, to be traced to a higher triad, which correspond to the lettersAleph,Beth,Gimmel, and the three principles combined in man, the vital in the heart, the vegetable in the liver, and the pleasurable in the brain, and also form themselves in a higher unity. It is in this way that the Kabbalist who is initiated into thepropheticKabbalah may gradually concentrate all his powers direct to one point to God, and unite himself with the Deity, for which purpose the ideas developed in unbroken sequence, from the permutations of numbers and letters, will serve him as steps upon which to ascend to God.”9
Abulafia wrote no less than twenty-six grammatical, exegetical, mystical and Kabbalistic works, and twenty-two prophetic treatises. And though these productions are of great importance to the history of the literature and development of the Kabbalah, yet only two of them, viz., the above-namedEpistle to R. Solomonand theEpistle to R. Abraham, entitledthe Seven Paths of the Law(סוע נתיבות התורה), have as yet been published.
2. Joseph Gikatilla b. Abraham (flour. 1260), disciple of Abulafia. He wrote in the interests and defence of this school the following works:—i. A Kabbalistic work entitledthe Garden of Nuts(גנת אגוז), consisting of three parts, and treating respectively on the import of the divine names, on the mysteries of the Hebrew letters, and on the vowel points. It was published at Hanau, 1615. ii. The import of the vowel points entitledthe Book on Vowels(ספר הניקוד), orthe Gate to the Points(שער הניקוד), published in the collection of seven treatises, calledthe Cedars of Lebanon[199](ארזי לבנון), Venice, 1601, and Cracow, 1648, of which it is the third treatise. iii.The Mystery of the Shining Metal(סוד החשמל), being a Kabbalistic exposition of the first chapter of Ezekiel, also published in the preceding seven treatises, of which it is the fourth. iv.The Gate of Light(שער אורה), being a treatise on the names of the Deity and theten Sephiroth, first published in Mantua, 1561; then Riva de Trento, 1561; Cracow, 1600. A Latin version of it by Knorr von Rosenroth is given in the first part of theKabbalaDenudata, Sulzbach, 1677–78. v.The Gates of Righteousness(שערי צדק), on the ten divine names answering to theten Sephiroth, published at Riva de Trento, 1561. vi.Mysteries(סודות) connected with sundry Pentateuchal ordinances, published by Jechiel Ashkenazi in hisTemple of the Lord(היכל יהוה), Venice and Dantzic, 1596–1606.10
From the above description it will be seen that the characteristic features of this school are the stress which its followers lay on the extensive use of the exegetical rules calledGematria(גמטריא),Notaricon(נוטריקון), andZiruph(צירוף), in the exposition of the divine names and Holy Writ, as well as in the claim to prophetic gifts. It must, however, be remarked that in this employment of commutations, permutations and reduction of each letter in every word to its numerical value, Abulafia and his followers are not original.
V. THE SOHAR SCHOOL, which is a combination and absorption of the different features and doctrines of all the previous schools, without any plan or method.
1236–1315. Less than a century after its birth the Kabbalah became known among Christians through the restless efforts of Raymond Lully, the celebrated scholastic metaphysician and experimental chemist. ThisDoctor illuminatus, as he was styled, in consequence of his great learning and[200]piety, was born about 1236 at Palma, in the island of Majorca. He relinquished the military service and writing erotic poetry when about thirty, and devoted himself to the study of theology. Being inspired with an ardent zeal for the conversion of the Mohammedans and the Jews to Christianity, he acquired a knowledge of Arabic and Hebrew for this purpose. In pursuing his Hebrew studies Lully became acquainted with the mysteries of the Kabbalah, and, instead of converting his Kabbalistic teachers, he embraced the doctrine of “the identity of the Deity and nature;”11and there is very little doubt that the Kabbalistic method of palming their notions on the text of Scripture, by means of theGematria,NotariconandZiruph, suggested to him the invention ofthe Great Art(Ars Magna). It is therefore not to be wondered at that he had the loftiest conception of the Kabbalah, that he regarded it as a divine science and as a genuine revelation whose light is revealed to a rational soul.12It cannot be said that Lully derived as much benefit from the Mohammedans, for after making three perilous journeys to Africa to bring the sons of Ishmael to the truth of Christianity, he was stoned to death by them, June 30, 1315.
The new era in the development of the Kabbalah, created by the appearance of theSohar, has continued to the present day, for nearly all those who have since espoused the doctrines of this theosophy have made theSohartheir text-book, and the principal writers have contented themselves more or less with writing commentaries on this gigantic pseudonym.
1290–1350. Foremost among these is Menahem di Recanti, who was born in Recanti (Latin Recinetum) about 1290. He wrote, when about forty years of age (1330), a commentary[201]on the Pentateuch, which is little else than a commentary on theSohar. This commentary—which was first published by Jacob b. Chajim in Bomberg’s celebrated printing establishment, Venice, 1523, then again,ibid., 1545, and in Lublin, 1595—has been translated into Latin by the famous Pico della Mirandola.13
1320. At the beginning of the fourteenth century Joseph b. Abraham Ibn Wakkar (flour. 1290–1340) endeavoured to reconcile this theosophy with philosophy, and to this end wrote a Treatise on the cardinal doctrines of the Kabbalah, which is regarded as one of the best if not the best introductory compendium. This production, which is unpublished, and a MS. of which exists in the Bodleian Library (Codex Land. 119; described by Uri No. 384), consists of four parts orGates, subdivided into chapters, as follows:—
Gate I, which is entitled,On the views of the Kabbalists respecting the Primary Cause, blessed be he, and the Sephiroth, as well as their names and order, consists of eight chapters, treating respectively on the fundamental doctrines of the emanations of theSephirothfrom the First Cause, as transmitted from Abraham and indicated in the Bible and the Rabbinic writings inGematrias(cap. i); on the unity of theSephiroth(cap. ii); the relation of theSephirothto each other, the First Cause itself being a trinity consisting of a threefold light, the number of theSephirothbeing from 10, 20, 30 and so on up to 310, stating that there is a difference of opinion amongst the Kabbalists whether the Primary Cause is within or without theSephiroth(cap. iii); on the three worlds of theSephiroth(cap. iv); on the beginninglessness of the first and necessary first Emanation, investigating the question as to how manySephiroththis property extends (cap. v); on[202]the subordination and order of theSephirothand the diagrams, mentioning, in addition to the three known ones, the figure of bridegroom and bride under the nuptial canopy (cap. vi); on the names of the Deity and the angels derived from theSephiroth(cap. vii); on the unclean (demon)Sephirothor Hells (קליפות) and their relation to the pure ones (cap. viii).
Gate II, which is entitled,On the influence of the Sephiroth on the government of the world(Providence), consists of six chapters, treating respectively on the relation of theSephirothto the fundamental characteristics of Providence, such as mercy, justice, &c. (cap. i); on the corresponding relations of the uncleanSephiroth(cap. ii); on the influence of theSephirothon men, especially on the Hebrew race, and their vicissitudes (caps. iii and iv); on the possibility of theSephirothwithholding this influence (cap. v); and on the relation of theSephirothto the days of the week (cap. vi).
Gate III, which is entitled,On the names of the Sephiroth among the Kabbalists, and which is the most extensive part of the work, consists of seven chapters, treating respectively on the names of the Deity, giving the sundry explanations ofאהיה אשר אהיהcurrent among the Jewish philosophers (cap.i); on the names of theSephiroth, stating that there is no uniform principle among the Kabbalists; that the appellations are derived from the Bible, the Talmud and later literati; that the greatest difference of opinion prevails among the Kabbalists as to the mode in which these ancient sources are to be interpreted, recommending the following works as reliable guides: the Talmud, Midrash Rabboth, Siphra, Siphri, Bahir, Perakim of R. Eliezer, the opinions of Nachmanides and Todros Ha-Levi Abulafia of honoured memory, but guarding against theSohar, because “many blunders occur therein”(cap. ii); on the import of the names of theSephiroth, with examples of interpretation of the Bible and Talmud[203]to serve as aids for the student who is to prosecute the work according to these examples, mentioning three explanations of the wordSephira(cap. iii); on the divine names occurring in the Pentateuch (cap. iv); on the masculine and feminine nature of theSephiroth(cap. v); this is followed (cap. vi) by an alphabetical dictionary of the names of theSephiroth, giving under each letter the Biblical and the corresponding Talmudic appellation appropriated by the Kabbalists to theSephiroth; and (cap. vii) by an index of the names of eachSephirain alphabetical order without any explanation.
Gate IV, which is entitledOn the positive proofs of the existence of the Kabbalah, describes the author’s own views of the Kabbalistic system, and submits that the Kabbalist has a preference over the philosopher and astronomer by virtue of the acknowledged maxim that he has a thorough knowledge of a thing who knows most details about it. Now the Kabbalists build their system upon the distinction of words, letters, &c., &c., in the sacred writings; and they also explain certain formularies among the Rabbins, which have undoubtedly a recondite sense.14
1370–1500. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the Kabbalah took deep root in Spain. Its followers, who were chiefly occupied with the study ofthe Sohar, with editing some older works, and with writing Kabbalistic commentaries on the Bible, became more and more aggressive, denouncing in unmeasured terms their co-religionists who could not see the advantages of this secret doctrine. Thus Abraham b. Isaac of Granada—who wrote (1391–1409) a Kabbalistic work entitledThe Covenant of Peace, discussing[204]the mysteries of the names of God and the angels, of permutations, commutations, the vowel points and accents—declares that he who does not acknowledge God in the manner of the Kabbalah sins unwittingly, is not regarded by God, has not his special providence, and, like the abandoned and the wicked, is left to fate.15
Similar in import and tone are the writings of Shem Tob Ibn Shem Tob (died 1430). In his Treatise, entitledthe Book of Faithfulness, which is an attack on the Jewish philosophers Ibn Ezra, Maimonides, Levi b. Gershon, &c., and a defence of the Kabbalah, Shem Tob denounces the students of philosophy as heretics, and maintains that the salvation of Israel depends upon the Kabbalah. He also wrote Homilies on the Pentateuch, the Feasts and Fasts, &c., in which the Kabbalistic doctrines are fully propounded.16
Moses Botarel or Botarelo, also a Spaniard, wrote at this time (1409) his commentary on the famousBook Jetzira, an analysis of which is given in the foregoing part of this Essay (vide supra, p. 147, &c.) Unlike Abraham of Granada and Shem Tob, his two contemporary champions of the Kabbalah, he praises philosophy, speaks of Aristotle as of a prophet, and maintains that philosophy and the Kabbalah propound exactly the some doctrines, and that they only differ in language and in technical terms. In this commentary, which he wrote to instruct the Christian scholar Maestro Juan in the Kabbalah, Botarel shows how, by fasting, ablutions, prayer, invocation of divine and angelic names, a man may have such dreams as shall disclose to him the secrets of the future. In confirmation of his opinions he quotes such ancient authorities as Rab Ashi, Saadia Gaon, Hai Gaon, &c., whom the Kabbalah claims as its great[205]pillars.17It is almost needless to remark that these men lived long before the birth of the Kabbalah, and that this mode of palming comparatively modern opinions upon great men of remote ages, has also been adopted by advocates of other systems who were anxious to invest their views with the halo of antiquity.
As countrymen of the foregoing writers, and as exponents of the opinions of older Kabbalists, are to be mentioned—(i) Jehudah Chajath who was among the large number of Jews expelled from Spain in 1493, and who wrote a commentary on the Kabbalistic work, entitledThe Divine Order;18and (ii) Abraham Ibn Sabba, who was banished with thousands of his brethren from Lisbon, 1499, and who is the author of a very extensive commentary on the Pentateuch, entitledThe Bundle of Myrrh, in which he largely avails himself of theSoharand other earlier Kabbalistic works.19
1463–1494. The Kabbalah, which soon after its birth became partially known to Christians through Raymond Lully, was now accessible to Christian scholars through the exertions and influence of the famous Count John Pico di Mirandola (born in 1463). This celebrated philosopher determined to fathom the mysteries of the Kabbalah, and for this purpose put himself under the tuition of a Jew, R. Jochanan Aleman, who came to Italy from Constantinople. His extraordinary intellectual powers soon enabled Mirandola to overcome the difficulties and to unravel the secrets of this theosophy. His labours were greatly rewarded; for, according to his shewing,[206]he found that20there is more Christianity in the Kabbalah than Judaism; he discovered in it proof for the doctrine of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the divinity of Christ, original sin, the expiation thereof by Christ, the heavenly Jerusalem, the fall of the angels, the order of the angels, purgatory and hell-fire; in fact the same Gospel which we find in St. Paul, Dionysius, St. Jerome and St. Augustine. As the result of his Kabbalistic studies Mirandola published, in 1486, when only twenty-four years of age,nine hundred Theses, which were placarded in Rome, and which he undertook to defend in the presence of all European scholars, whom he invited to the eternal city, promising to defray their travelling expenses. Among theseTheseswas the following, “No science yields greater proof of the divinity of Christ than magic and the Kabbalah.”21Pope Sixtus IV (1471–1484) was so delighted with it that he greatly exerted himself to have Kabbalistic writings translated into Latin for the use of divinity students.22Mirandola accordingly translated the following three works: 1, Menahem di Recanti’s Commentary on the Pentateuch, erroneously calledR. Levide Recineto (Wolf,ibid., p. 10); 2, Eliezer of Worms’חכמת הנפשde Scientia animae; and 3, Shem Tob Falaquera’sספר המעלות
1455–1522. Not only did Mirandola make the Kabbalah known to the Christians in Italy, but he was the means of introducing it into Germany through John Reuchlin, the[207]father of the German Reformation. This eminent scholar,—who is also called by the Greek nameCapnion(καπνίον), orCapnio, which is a translation of his German nameReuchlin,i.e.smoke, in accordance with the fashion of the time; just asGerard, signifyingamiable, assumed the name ofDesiderius Erasmus, andSchwartzerth, denotingblack earth, took the name ofMelanchthon,—was born at Phorzheim December 28, 1455. At the age of seventeen he was called to the court of Baden, and received among the court singers in consequence of his beautiful voice. His brilliant attainments soon attracted notice, and he was sent (1473) with the young Margrave Frederick, eldest son of Charles II, afterwards bishop of Utrecht, to the celebrated high school of Paris. Here he acquired, from Hermonymus of Sparta and other fugitive Greek literati, who went to Paris after the taking of Constantinople (1453), that remarkable knowledge of Greek which enabled him so largely to amass the Attic lore and rendered him so famous through Europe. He went to Basle in 1474, delivered lectures on the Latin language and the classics, and had among his hearers nobles of high rank both from France and Germany. He went to Tübingen in 1481, where his fame secured for him the friendship of Eberhard the Bearded, who made him his private secretary and privy councillor, and as such this prince took Reuchlin with him to Rome in 1482, where he made that splendid Latin oration before the Pope and the cardinals, which elicited from his Holiness the declaration that Reuchlin deserved to be placed among the best orators of France and Italy. From Rome Eberhard took him to Florence, and it was here that Reuchlin became acquainted with the celebrated Mirandola and with the Kabbalah. But as he was appointed licentiate and assessor of the supreme court in Stuttgard, the new residence of Eberhard, on his return in 1484, and as the order of Dominicans elected him as their proctor in the whole of Germany,[208]Reuchlin had not time to enter at once upon the study of Hebrew and Aramaic, which are the key to the Kabbalah, and he had reluctantly to wait till 1492, when he accompanied Eberhard to the imperial court at Ling. Here he became acquainted with R. Jacob b. Jechiel Loanz, a learned Hebrew, and court physician of Frederick III, from whom he learned Hebrew.23Whereupon Reuchlin at once betook himself to the study ofthe Kabbalah, and within two years of his beginning to learn the language in which it is written, his first Kabbalistic treatise, entitledDe Verbo Mirifico(Basle, 1494), appeared. This treatise is of the greatest rarity, and the following analysis of it is given by Franck. It is in the form of a dialogue between an Epicurean philosopher named Sidonius, a Jew named Baruch, and the author, who is introduced by his Greek name Capnio, and consists of three books, according to the number of speakers.
Book I, the exponent of which is Baruch the Jewish Kabbalist, is occupied with a refutation of the Epicurean doctrines; and simply reproduces the arguments generally urged against this system, for which reason we omit any further description of it.
Book II endeavours to shew that all wisdom and true philosophy are derived from the Hebrews, that Plato, Pythagoras and Zoroaster borrowed their ideas from the Bible, and that traces of the Hebrew language are to be found in the liturgies and sacred books of all nations. Then follows an explanation of the four divine names, which are shown to have been transplanted into the systems of Greek philosophy. The first and most distinguished of themאהיה אשר אהיהego sum qui sum( Exod. iii, 12 ), is translated in the Platonic philosophy byτὸὄντωςὢν. The second divine name, which we translate byהואHe,i.e., the sign of unchangeableness and[209]of the eternal idea of the Deity, is also to be found among the Greek philosophers in the termταυτὸν, which is opposed toθατερὸν. The third name of God used in Holy Writ isאשFire. In this form God appeared in the burning bush when he first manifested himself to Moses. The prophets describe him as a burning fire, and John the Baptist depicts him as such when he says, “I baptize you with water, but he who cometh after me shall baptize you with fire.” ( Matt. iii, 11 .) The fire of the Hebrew prophets is the same as the ether (αἰθὴρ) mentioned in the hymns of Orpheus. But these three names are in reality only one, showing to us the divine nature in three different aspects. Thus God calls himselfthe Being, because every existence emanates from him; he calls himselfFire, because it is he who illuminates and animates all things and he is alwaysHe, because he always remains like himself amidst the infinite variety of his works. Now just as there are names which express the nature of the Deity, so there are names which refer to his attributes, and these are theten Sephiroth. If we look away from every attribute and every definite point of view in which the divine subsistence may be contemplated, if we endeavour to depict the absolute Being as concentrating himself within himself, and not affording us any explicable relation to our intellect, he is then described by a name which it is forbidden to pronounce, by the thrice holy Tetragrammaton, the name Jehovah (יהוה)the Shem Ha-Mephorash(שם המפורש).
There is no doubt that the tetrad (τετρακτύς) of Pythagoras is an imitation of the Hebrew Tetragrammaton, and that the worship of the decade has simply been invented in honour of theten Sephiroth. The four letters composing this name represent the four fundamental constituents of the body (i.e., heat, cold, dryness and humidity), the four geometrical principal points (i.e., the point, the line, flat and body), the four notes of the musical scale, the four rivers in the earthly[210]paradise, the four symbolical figures in the vision of Ezekiel, &c., &c., &c. Moreover if we look at these four letters separately we shall find that each of them has equally a recondite meaning. The first letterי, which also stands for the numberten, and which by its form reminds us of the mathematical point, teaches us that God is the beginning and end of all things. The numberfive, expressed byהthe second letter, shows us the union of God with nature—of God inasmuch as he is depicted by the number three,i.e., the Trinity; and of visible nature, inasmuch as it is represented by Plato and Pythagoras under the dual. The numbersix, expressed byו, the third letter, which is likewise revered in the Pythagorean school, is formed by the combination of one, two, and three, the symbol of all perfection. Moreover the numbersixis the symbol of the cube, the bodies (solida), or the world. Hence it is evident that the world has in it the imprint of divine perfection. The fourth and last letter of this divine name (ה) is like the second, represents the numberfive, and here symbolizes the human and rational soul, which is the medium between heaven and earth, just as five is the centre of the decade, the symbolic expression of the totality of things.
Book III, the exponent of which is Capnio, endeavours to shew that the most essential doctrines of Christianity are to be found by the same method. Let a few instances of this method suffice. Thus the doctrine of the Trinity is to be found in the first verse of Genesis. If the Hebrew wordבראwhich is translatedcreated, be examined, and if each of the three letters composing this word be taken as the initial of a separate word, we obtain the expressionsבן רוח אבSon,Spirit,Father. Upon the same principle we find the two persons of the Trinity in the words, “the stone which the builders refused is become the heed stone of the corner” ( Ps. cxviii, 22 ), inasmuch as the three letters composing the[211]wordאבןstone, are to be divided intoאב בןFather,Son. Orpheus, in his hymn on the night, described the Trinity of the New Testament in the words,νὺξ, οὐρανὸς, αἰθὴρ, for night which begets everything can only designatethe Father; heaven, that olyphus which in its boundlessness embraces all things, and which proceeded from the night, signifiesthe Son; whilst ether, which the ancient poet also designatesfiery breath, is theHoly Ghost. The name Jesus in Hebrewי״ה״ש״ו״הtheπενταγράμματονyields the nameיהוהJehovah; and theשwhich in the language of the Kabbalah is the symbol of fire or light, which St. Jerome, in his mystical exposition of the alphabet, has made the sign of theΛόγος. This mysterious name therefore contains a whole revelation, inasmuch as it shows us that Jesus is God himself, the Light or theLogos. Even the cross, which is the symbol of Christianity, is plainly indicated in the Old Testament, by the tree of life which God planted in the midst of the garden; by the praying attitude of Moses, when he raised his hands towards heaven in his intercession for Israel during the combat with Amalek; and by the tree which converted the bitter waters into sweet in the wilderness of Marah.24
The Treatisede Verbo Mirificois, however, only an introduction to another work on the same subject which Reuchlin published twenty-two years later, entitledDe Arte Cabalistica. Hagenau, 1516. This Treatise, like the first, is in the form of a dialogue between a Mohammedan named Marrianus, a Pythagorean Philosopher named Philolaus, and a Jewish doctor named Simon. The dialogue is held in Frankfort, where the Jew resides, to whom the Mohammedan and Pythagorean resort to be initiated into the mysteries of the Kabbalah. The whole is a more matured exposition and elaboration of the ideas hinted at in his first work.[212]
The Kabbalah, according to Reuchlin, is a symbolical reception of Divine revelation; and a distinction is to be made betweenCabalici, to whom belongs heavenly inspiration, their disciplesCabalaai, and their imitatorsCabalistae. The design of the Kabbalah is to propound the relations of the absolute Creator to the creature. God is the Creator of all beings which emanated from him, and he implanted aspirations in them to attain actual communion with him. In order that feeble man might attain this communion, God revealed himself to mankind in various ways, but especially to Moses. This Divine revelation to Moses contains far more than appears on the surface of the Pentateuch. There is a recondite wisdom concealed in it which distinguishes it from other codes of morals and precepts. There are in the Pentateuch many pleonasms and repetitions of the same things and words, and as we cannot charge God with having inserted useless and superfluous words in the Holy Scriptures, we must believe that something more profound is contained in them, to which the Kabbalah gives the key.
This key consists in permutations, commutations, &c., &c. But this act of exchanging and arranging letters, and of interpreting for the edification of the soul the Holy Scriptures, which we have received from God as a divine thing not to be understood by the multitude, was not communicated by Moses to everybody, but to the elect, such as Joshua, and so by tradition it came to the seventy interpreters. This gift is calledKabbalah. God, out of love to his people, has revealed hidden mysteries to some of them, and these have found the living spirit in the dead letter; that is to say, the Scriptures consist of separate letters, visible signs which stand in a certain relation to the angels as celestial and spiritual emanations from God; and by pronouncing them, the latter also are affected. To a true Kabbalist, who has an insight into the whole connection of the terrestrial with the celestial, these[213]signs thus put together are the means of placing him in close union with spirits, who are thereby bound to fulfil his wishes.25
The extraordinary influence which Reuchlin’s Kabbalistic Treatises exercised upon the greatest thinkers of the time and upon the early reformers may be judged of from the unmeasured terms of praise which they bestowed upon their author. The Treatises were regarded as heavenly communications, revealing new divine wisdom. Conrad Leontarius, writing to Wimpheling on the subject, says—“I never saw anything more beautiful or admirable than this work (i.e.,De Verbo Mirifico), which easily convinces him who reads it that no philosopher, whether Jew or Christian, is superior to Reuchlin.” Aegidius, general of the Eremites, wrote to the holy Augustine “that Reuchlin had rendered him, as well as the rest of mankind, happy by his works, which had made known to all a thing hitherto unheard of.” Philip Beroaldus, the younger, sent him word “that Pope Leo X had read his Pythagorean book greedily, as he did all good books; afterwards the Cardinal de Medici had done so, and he himself should soon enjoy it.”26Such was the interest which this newly-revealed Kabbalah created among Christians, that not only learned men but statesmen and warriors began to study the oriental languages, in order to be able to fathom the mysteries of this theosophy.
1450–1498. Whilst the Kabbalah was gaining such high favour amongst Christians both in Italy and Germany, through the exertions of Mirandola and Reuchlin, a powerful voice was raised among the Jews againstthe Sohar, the very Bible of this theosophy. Elia del Medigo, born at Candia, then in Venetia, 1450, of a German literary family, professor of[214]philosophy in the University of Padua, teacher of Pico de Mirandola, and a scholar of the highest reputation both among his Jewish brethren and among Christians, impugned the authority ofthe Sohar. In his philosophical Treatise on the nature of Judaism as a harmonizer between religion and philosophy, entitledAn Examination of the Law(בחינת הדת), which he wrote December 29, 1491, he puts into the mouth of an antagonist to the Kabbalah the following three arguments against the genuineness of theSohar: 1, Neither the Talmud, nor the Gaonim and Rabbins knew anything of theSoharor of its doctrines; 2, TheSoharwas published at a very late period; and 3, Many anachronisms occur in it, inasmuch as it describes later Amoraic authorities as having direct intercourse with the Tanaite R. Simon b. Jochai who belongs to an earlier period.27
1522–1570. The voice of Elia del Medigo and others, however, had no power to check the rapid progress of the Kabbalah, which had now found its way from Spain and Italy into Palestine and Poland, and penetrated all branches of life and literature. Passing over the host of minor advocates and teachers, we shall mention the two great masters in Palestine, who formed two distinct schools, distinguished by the prominence which they respectively gave to certain doctrines of the Kabbalah. The first of these is Moses Cordovero, also calledRemak=רמ׳קfrom the acrostic of his nameקורדואירוR. Moses Cordovero. He was born in Cordova, 1522, studied the Kabbalah under his learned brother-in-law, Solomon Aleavez, and very soon became so distinguished as a Kabbalist and author that his fame travelled to Italy, where his works were greedily bought. His principal works are: 1, An Introduction to the Kabbalah, entitledA SombreorSweet[215]Light(אור נערב) first published in Venice, 1587, then in Cracow, 1647, and in Fürth, 1701; 2, Kabbalistic reflections and comments on ninety-nine passages of the Bible, entitledThe Book of Retirement(ספר נרושין), published in Venice, 1543; and 3, A large Kabbalistic work entitledThe Garden of Pomegranates(פרדס רמונים), which consists of thirteen sections or gates (שערים) subdivided into chapters, and discussesthe Sephiroth, the Divine names, the import and significance of the letters, &c., &c. It was first published in Cracow, 1591. Excerpts of it have been translated into Latin by Bartolocci,Bibliotheca Magna Rabbinica, vol. iv, p. 231, &c., and Knorr von Rosenroth,Tractatus de Anima ex libro Pardes Rimmonimin hisKabbalaDenudata, Sulzbach, 1677.28
The peculiar feature of Cordovero is that he is chiefly occupied with the scientific speculations of the Kabbalah, orthe speculative Kabbalah(קבלה עיונית), as it is called in the modern terminology of this esoteric doctrine, in contra-distinction tothe wonder-working Kabbalah(קבלה מעשית), keeping aloof to a great extent from the extravagances which we shall soon have to notice. In this respect therefore he represents the Kabbalah in its primitive state, as may be seen from the following specimen of his lucubrations on the nature of the Deity. “The knowledge of the Creator is different from that of the creature, since in the case of the latter, knowledge and the thing known are distinct, thus leading to subjects which are again separate from him. This is described by the three expressions—cogitation, the cogitator and the cogitated object. Now the Creator is himself knowledge, knowing and the known object. His knowledge does not consist in the fact that he directs his thoughts to things[216]without him, since in comprehending and knowing himself, he comprehends and knows everything which exists. There is nothing which is not united with him, and which he does not find in his own substance. He is the archetype of all things existing, and all things are in him in their purest and most perfect form; so that the perfection of the creatures consists in the support whereby they are united to the primary source of his existence, and they sink down and fall from that perfect and lofty position in proportion to their separation from him.”29
1534–1572. The opposite to this school is the one founded by Isaac Luria or Loria, also calledAri=אר״יfrom the initials of his nameהאשכנזי ר׳ יצחקR. Isaac Ashkanazi. He was born at Jerusalem 1534, and, having lost his father when very young, was taken by his mother to Kahira, where he was put by his rich uncle under the tuition of the best Jewish master. Up to his twenty-second year he was a diligent student of the Talmud and the Rabbinic lore, and distinguished himself in these departments of learning in a most remarkable manner. He then lived in retirement for about seven years to give free scope to his thoughts and meditations, but he soon found that simple retirement from collegiate studies did not satisfy him. He therefore removed to the banks of the Nile, where he lived in a sequestered cottage for several years, giving himself up entirely to meditations and reveries. Here he had constant interviews with the prophet Elias, who communicated to him sublime doctrines. Here, too, his soul ascended to heaven whenever he was asleep, and in the celestial regions held converse with the souls of the great teachers of bygone days. When thirty-six years of age (1570) the Prophet Elias appeared to him again and told him to go to Palestine, where his successor was awaiting him. Obedient to the command, he went to Safet, where he gathered[217]round him ten disciples, visited the sepulchres of ancient teachers, and there, by prostrations and prayers, obtained from their spirits all manner of revelations, so much so that he was convinced he was the Messiah b. Joseph and that he was able to perform all sorts of miracles. It was this part of the Kabbalah,i.e., the ascetic and miraculous (כבלה מעשית), which Loria taught. His sentiments he delivered orally, as he himself did not write anything, except perhaps some marginal notes of a critical import in older books and MSS. His disciples treasured up his marvellous sayings, whereby they performed miracles and converted thousands to the doctrines of this theosophy.
1543–1620. The real exponent of Loria’s Kabbalistic system is his celebrated disciple Chajim Vital, a descendant of a Calabrian family, who died in 1620 at the age of seventy-seven. After the demise of his teacher, Chajim Vital diligently collected all the MS. notes of the lectures which Loria’s disciples had written down, from which, together with his own jottings, he produced the gigantic and famous system of the Kabbalah, entitledthe Tree of Life(עץ החיים). This work, over which Vital laboured thirty years, was at first circulated in MS. copies, and every one of the Kabbalistic disciples had to pledge himself, under pain of excommunication, not to allow a copy to be made for a foreign land; so that for a time all the Codd. remained in Palestine. At last, however, this Thesaurus of the Kabbalah, which properly consists of six works, was published by J. Satanow at Zolkiev, 1772. New editions of it appeared in Korez, 1785; Sklow, 1800; Dobrowne, 1804; Stilikow, 1818; and Knorr von Rosenroth has translated into Latin a portion of that part of the great work which treats onthe doctrine of the metempsychosis(הגלגולים).30
1558–1560. The circulation of Loria’s work which gave[218]an extraordinary impetus to the Kabbalah, and which gave rise to the new school and a separate congregation in Palestine, was not the only favourable circumstance which had arisen to advance and promulgate the esoteric doctrine. TheSohar, which since its birth had been circulated in MS., was now for the first time printed in Mantua, and thousands of people who had hitherto been unable to procure the MS. were thus enabled to possess themselves of copies.31It is, however, evident that with the increased circulation of these two Bibles of the Kabbalah, as theSoharand Loria’sEtz Chajimare called, there was an increased cry on the part of learned Jews against the doctrines propounded in them. Isaac b. Immanuel de Lates, the Rabbi of Pesaro, and the great champion for the Kabbalah, who prefixed a commendatory epistle to theSohar, tells us most distinctly that some Rabbins wanted to prevent the publication of theSohar, urging that it ought to be kept secret or be burned, because it tends to heretical doctrines.32
1571–1648. Of the numerous opponents to the Kabbalah which theSoharand Loria’s work called forth, Leo de Modena was by far the most daring, the most outspoken and the most powerful. This eminent scholar who is known to the Christian world by his celebratedHistory of the Rites, Customs and Manners of the Jews, which was originally written in Italian, published in Padua, 1640, and which has been translated into Latin, English, French, Dutch, &c., attacked the Kabbalah in two of his works. His first onslaught is on the doctrine of metempsychosis in his Treatise entitledBen David. He composed this Treatise in 1635–36, at the request of David Finzi, of Egypt, and he demonstrates therein that this doctrine[219]is of Gentile origin, and was rejected by the great men of the Jewish faith in bygone days, refuting at the same time the philosophico-theological arguments advanced in its favour.33It is, however, his second attack on this esoteric doctrine, in his work entitledThe Roaring Lion(ארי נוהם), which is so damaging to the Kabbalah. In this Treatise—which Leo de Modena composed in 1639, at the advanced age of sixty-eight, to reclaim Joseph Chamiz, a beloved disciple of his, who was an ardent follower of the Kabbalah—he shows that the books which propound this esoteric doctrine, and which are palmed upon ancient authorities, are pseudonymous; that the doctrines themselves are mischievous; and that the followers of this system are inflated with proud notions, pretending to know the nature of God better than anyone else, and to possess the nearest and best way of approaching the Deity.34
1623. The celebrated Hebraist, Joseph Solomon del Medigo (born 1591, died 1637), a contemporary of the preceding writer, also employed his vast stores of erudition to expose this system. Having been asked by R. Serach for his views of the Kabbalah, del Medigo, in a masterly letter, written in 1623, shows up the folly of this esoteric doctrine, and the unreasonableness of the exegetical rules, whereby the followers of this system pretend to deduce it from the Bible.35
1635. We have seen that the information about the Kabbalah, which Mirandola and Reuchlin imparted to Christians, was chiefly derived from the writings of Recanti and Gikatilla. Now that theSoharhad been published, Joseph de Voisin[220]determined to be the first to make some portions of it accessible to those Christian readers who did not understand the Aramaic in which this Thesaurus is written. Accordingly he translated some extracts of theSoharwhich treat of the nature of the human soul.36
1652–1654. Just at the very time when some of the most distinguished Jews exposed the pretensions of the Kabbalah, and denounced the fanciful and unjustifiable rules of interpretation whereby its advocates tried to evolve it from the letters of the revealed law, the celebrated Athanasius Kircher, in a most learned and elaborate treatise on this subject, maintained that the Kabbalah was introduced into Egypt by no less a person than the patriarch Abraham; and that from Egypt it gradually issued all over the East, and intermixed with all religions and systems of philosophy. What is still more extraordinary is that this learned Jesuit, in thus exalting the Kabbalah, lays the greatest stress on that part of it which developed itself afterwards, viz., the combinations, transpositions and permutations of the letters, and does not discriminate between it and the speculations about theEn Soph,the Sephiroth, &c., which were the original characteristics of this theosophy.37The amount of Eastern lore, however, which Kircher has amassed in his work will always remain a noble monument to the extensive learning of this Jesuit.
1645–1676. The wonder-working or practical branch of the Kabbalah (קבלה מעשית), as it is called, so elaborately propounded and defended by Kircher, which consists in the transpositions of the letters of the sundry divine names, &c., and which as we have seen constituted no part of the original Kabbalah, had now largely laid hold on the minds and fancies[221]of both Jews and Christians, and was producing among the former the most mournful and calamitous effects. The famous Kabbalist, Sabbatai Zevi, who was born in Smyrna, July, 1641, was the chief actor in this tragedy. When a child he was sent to a Rabbinic school, and instructed in the Law, the Mishna, the Talmud, the Midrashim, and the whole cycle of Rabbinic lore. So great were his intellectual powers, and so vast the knowledge he acquired, that when fifteen he betook himself to the study of the Kabbalah, rapidly mastered its mysteries, became peerless in his knowledge of “those things which were revealed and those things which were hidden;” and at the age of eighteen obtained the honourable appellationsage(חכם), and delivered public lectures, expounding the divine law and the esoteric doctrine before crowded audiences. At the age of twenty-four he gave himself out as the Messiah, the Son of David, and the Redeemer of Israel, pronouncing publicly the Tetragrammaton, which was only allowed to the high priests during the existence of the second Temple. Though the Jewish sages of Smyrna excommunicated him for it, he travelled to Salonica, Athens, Morea and Jerusalem, teaching the Kabbalah, proclaiming himself as the Messiah, anointing prophets and converting thousands upon thousands. So numerous were the believers in him, that in many places trade was entirely stopped; the Jews wound up their affairs, disposed of their chattels and made themselves ready to be redeemed from their captivity and led by Sabbatai Zevi back to Jerusalem. The consuls of Europe were ordered to enquire into this extraordinary movement, and the governors of the East reported to the Sultan the cessation of commerce. Sabbatai Zevi was then arrested by order of the Sultan, Mohammed IV, and taken before him at Adrianople. The Sultan spoke to him as follows—“I am going to test thy Messiahship. Three poisoned arrows shall be shot into thee, and if they do not kill thee, I too will believe that thou art the[222]Messiah.” He saved himself by embracing Islamism in the presence of the Sultan, who gave him the nameEffendi, and appointed himKapidgi Bashi. Thus ended the career of the Kabbalist Sabbatai Zevi, after having ruined thousands upon thousands of Jewish families.38
1677–1684. Whether the learned Knorr Baron von Rosenroth knew of the extravagances of Sabbatai Zevi or not is difficult to say. At all events this accomplished Christian scholar believed that Simon b. Jochai was the author of theSohar, that he wrote it under divine inspiration, and that it is most essential to the elucidation of the doctrines of Christianity. With this conviction he determined to master the difficulties connected with the Kabbalistic writings, in order to render the principal works of this esoteric doctrine accessible to his Christian brethren. For, although Lully, Mirandola, Reuchlin and Kircher had already done much to acquaint the Christian world with the secrets of the Kabbalah, none of these scholars had given translations of any portions of theSohar.
Knorr Baron von Rosenroth, therefore put himself under the tuition of R. Meier Stern, a learned Jew, and with his assistance was enabled to publish the celebrated work entitled theUnveiled Kabbalah(Kabbala Denudata), in two large volumes, the first of which was printed at Sulzbach, 1677–78, and the second at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, 1684, giving a Latin translation of the Introduction to and the following portion of theSohar—theBook of Mysteries(ספר דצניעותא); theGreat Assembly(אדרא רבא); theSmall Assembly(אדרא זוטא); Joseph Gikatilla’sGate of Light(שער אורה); theDoctrine of Metempsychosis(הגלגולים), and theTree of Life(עץ חיים), of Chajim Vital; theGarden of Pomegranates(פרדס רימונים), of Moses Cordovero; theHouse of the Lord(בית אלהים), and theGate of Heaven(שער השמים), of[223]Abraham Herera; theValley of the King(עמק המלך), of Naphtah b. Jacob; theVision of the Priest(מראה כהן), of Issachar Beer b. Naphtali Cohen, &c., &c., with elaborate annotations, glossaries and indices. The only drawback to this gigantic work is that it is without any system, and that it mixes up in one all the earlier developments of the Kabbalah with the later productions. Still the criticism passed upon it by Buddeus, that it is a “confused and obscure work, in which the necessary and the unnecessary, the useful and the useless are mixed up and thrown together as it were into one chaos,”39is rather too severe; and it must be remembered that if theKabbala Denudatadoes not exhibit a regular system of this esoteric doctrine, it furnishes much material for it. Baron von Rosenroth has also collected all the passages of the New Testament which contain similar doctrines to those propounded by the Kabbalah.