Re: Qabbalah, the Jewish mysticism
On Cabbala, from the Jewish encyclopaedia:
Quote:
Name and Origin (Hebrew form Ḳabbalah [ , from  = "to receive"; literally, "the received or traditional lore"]):
The specific term for the esoteric or mystic doctrine concerning God and the universe, asserted to have come down as a revelation to elect saints from a remote past, and preserved only by a privileged few. At first consisting only of empirical lore, it assumed, under the influence of Neoplatonic and Neopythagorean philosophy, a speculative character. In the geonic period it is connected with a Mishnah-like text-book, the "Sefer Yeẓirah," and forms the object of the systematic study of the elect, called "meḳubbalim" or "ba'ale ha-ḳabbalah" (possessors of, or adepts in, the Cabala). These receive afterward the name of "maskilim" (the wise), after Dan. xii. 10; and because the Cabala is called  ("ḥokmah nistarah" = the hidden wisdom), the initials of which are  , they receive also the name of  ("adepts in grace") (Eccl. ix. 11, Hebr.). From the thirteenth century onward the Cabala branched out into an extensive literature, alongside of and in opposition to the Talmud. It was written in a peculiar Aramaic dialect, and was grouped as commentaries on the Torah, around the Zohar as its holy book, which suddenly made its appearance.
The Cabala is divided into a theosophical or theoretical system, Ḳabbalah 'Iyyunit ( ) and a theurgic or practical Cabala,  . In view of the fact that the name "Cabala" does not occur in literature before the eleventh century (see Landauer, "Orient. Lit." vi. 206; compare Zunz, "G. V." p. 415), and because of the pseudepigraphic character of the Zohar and of almost all the cabalistic writings, most modern scholars, among whom are Zunz, Grätz, Luzzatto, Jost, Steinschneider, and Munk (see bibliography below), have treated the Cabala with a certain bias and from a rationalistic rather than from a psychologico-historical point of view; applying the name of "Cabala" only to the speculative systems which appeared since the thirteenth century, under pretentious titles and with fictitious claims, but not to the mystic lore of the geonic and Talmudic times. Such distinction and partiality, however, prevent a deeper understanding of the nature and progress of the Cabala, which, on closer observation, shows a continuous line of development from the same roots and elements.
Meaning of the Word "Cabala."
Cabala comprised originally the entire traditional lore, in contradistinction to the written law (Torah), and therefore included the prophetic and hagiographic books of the Bible, which were supposed to have been "received" by the power of the Holy Spirit rather than as writings from God's hand (see Ta'an. ii. 1; R. H. 7a, 19a, and elsewhere in the Talmud; compare Zunz, "G. V." 2d ed., pp. 46, 366, 415, and Taylor, "Early Sayings of the Jewish Fathers," 1899, pp. 106 et seq., 175 et seq.). Each "received" doctrine was claimed as tradition from the Fathers—"masoret me-Abotenu" (Josephus, "Ant." xiii. 10, § 6; 16, § 2; Meg. 10b; Sheḳ. vi. 1)—to be traced back to the Prophets or to Moses on Sinai (compare "meḳubbalani" in Peah ii. 6; 'Eduy. viii. 7). So the Masorah, "the fence to the Torah" (Ab. iii. 13) is, as Taylor (l.c. p. 55) correctly states, "a correlation to Cabala." The chief characteristic of the Cabala is that, unlike the Scriptures, it was entrusted only to the few elect ones; wherefore, according to IV Esdras xiv. 5, 6, Moses, on Mount Sinai, when receiving both the Law and the knowledge of wondrous things, was told by the Lord: "These words shalt thou declare, and these shalt thou hide." Accordingly the rule laid down for the transmission of the cabalistic lore in the ancient Mishnah (Ḥag. ii. 1) was "not to expound the Chapter of Creation ("Ma'aseh Bereshit," Gen. i.) before more than one hearer; nor that of the Heavenly Chariot ("Merkabah," Ezek. i.; compare I Chron. xxviii. 18 and Ecclus. [Sirach] xlix. 8) to any but a man of wisdom and profound understanding"; that is to say, cosmogony and theosophy were regarded as esoteric studies (Ḥag. 13a). Such was the "Masoret ha-Ḥokmah" (the tradition of wisdom, handed over by Moses to Joshua (Tan., Wa'etḥanan, ed. Buber, 13); and likewise the twofold philosophyof the Essenes, "the contemplation of God's being and the origin of the universe," specified by Philo ("Quod Omnis Probus Liber," xii.). Besides these there was the eschatology—that is, the secrets of the place and time of the retribution and the future redemption (Sifre, Wezot ha-Berakah, 357); "the secret chambers of the behemoth and leviathan" (Cant. R. i. 4); the secret of the calendar ("Sod ha-'Ibbur")—that is, the mode of calculating the years with a view to the Messianic kingdom (Ket. 111a-112a; Yer. R. H. ii. 58b); and, finally, the knowledge and use of the Ineffable Name, also "to be transmitted only to the saintly and discreet ones" (Ẓenu'im or Essenes; Ḳid. 71a; Yer. Yoma iii. 40d; Eccl. R. iii. 11), and of the angels (Josephus, "B. J." ii. 8, § 7). All these formed the sum and substance of the Mysteries of the Torah, "Sitre or Raze Torah" (Pes. 119a; Meg. 3a; Ab. vi. 1), "the things spoken only in a whisper" (Ḥag. 14a).
Antiquity of the Cabala.
How old the Cabala is, may be inferred from the fact that as early a writer as Ben Sira warns against it in his saying:  = "Thou shalt have no business with secret things" (Ecclus. [Sirach] iii. 22; compare Ḥag. 13a; Gen. R. viii.). In fact, the apocalyptic literature belonging to the second and first pre-Christian centuries contained the chief elements of the Cabala; and as, according to Josephus (l.c.), such writings were in the possession of the Essenes, and were jealously guarded by them against disclosure, for which they claimed a hoary antiquity (see Philo, "De Vita Contemplativa," iii., and Hippolytus, "Refutation of all Heresies," ix. 27), the Essenes have with sufficient reason been assumed by Jellinek ("B. H." ii., iii., Introductions and elsewhere), by Plessner ("Dat Mosheh wi-Yehudit," pp. iv. 47 et seq.), by Hilgenfeld ("Die Jüdische Apokalyptik," 1857, p. 257), by Eichhorn ("Einleitung in die Apoc. Schriften des Alten Testaments," 1795, pp. 434 et seq.), by Gaster ("The Sword of Moses," 1896, Introduction), by Kohler ("Test. Job," in Kohut Memorial Volume, pp. 266, 288 et seq.), and by others to be the originators of the Cabala.
That many such books containing secret lore were kept hidden away by the "wise" is clearly stated in IV Esdras xiv. 45-46, where Pseudo-Ezra is told to publish the twenty-four books of the canon openly that the worthy and the unworthy may alike read, but to keep the seventy other books hidden in order to "deliver them only to such as be wise" (compare Dan. xii. 10); for in them are the spring of understanding, the fountain of wisdom, and the stream of knowledge (compare Soṭah xv. 3). A study of the few still existing apocryphal books discloses the fact, ignored by most modern writers on the Cabala and Essenism, that "the mystic lore" occasionally alluded to in the Talmudic or Midrashic literature (compare Zunz, "G. V." 2d ed., pp. 172 et seq.; Joël, "Religionsphilosophie des Sohar," pp. 45-54) is not only much more systematically presented in these older writings, but gives ample evidence of a continuous cabalistic tradition; inasmuch as the mystic literature of the geonic period is only a fragmentary reproduction of the ancient apocalyptic writings, and the saints and sages of the tannaic period take in the former the place occupied by the Biblical protoplasts, patriarchs, and scribes in the latter.
Cabalistic Elements in the Apocrypha.
So, also, does the older Enoch book, parts of which have been preserved in the geonic mystic literature (see Jellinek, l.c., and "Z. D. M. G." 1853, p. 249), by its angelology, demonology, and cosmology, give a fuller insight into the "Merkabah" and "Bereshit" lore of the ancients than the "Hekalot," which present but fragments, while the central figure of the Cabala, Meṭaṭron-Enoch, is seen in ch. lxx.-lxxi. in a process of transformation. The cosmogony of the Slavonic Enoch, a product of the first pre-Christian century (Charles, "The Book of the Secrets of Enoch," 1896, p. xxv.), showing an advanced stage compared with the older Enoch book, casts a flood of light upon the rabbinical cosmogony by its realistic description of the process of creation (compare ch. xxv.-xxx. and Ḥag. 12a et seq.; Yer. Ḥag. ii. 77a et seq.; Gen. R. i.-x.). Here are found the primal elements, "the stones of fire" out of which "the Throne of Glory" is made, and from which the angels emanate; "the glassy sea" ( ), beneath which the seven heavens, formed of fire and water ( ), are stretched out, and the founding of the world upon the abyss ( ); the preexistence of human souls (Plato, "Timæus," 36; Yeb. 63b; Nid. 30b), and the formation of man by the Creative Wisdom out of seven substances (see Charles, note to ch. xxvi. 5 and xxx. 8, who refers to Philo and the Stoics for analogies); the ten classes of angels (ch. xx.); and, in ch. xxii., version A, ten heavens instead of seven, and an advanced chiliastic calendar system (ch. xv.-xvi., xxxii.; see Millennium). Its cabalistic character is shown by references to the writings of Adam, Seth, Cainan, Mahalalel, and Jared (ch. xxxiii. 10, and elsewhere).
A Continuous Tradition.
More instructive still for the study of the development of cabalistic lore is the Book of Jubilees written under King John Hyrcanus (see Charles, "The Book of Jubilees," 1902, Introduction, pp. lviii. et seq.)—which also refers to the writings of Jared, Cainan, and Noah, and presents Abraham as the renewer, and Levi as the permanent guardian, of these ancient writings (ch. iv. 18, viii. 3, x. 13; compare Jellinek, "B. H." iii. 155, xii. 27, xxi. 10, xlv. 16)—because it offers, as early as a thousand years prior to the supposed date of the "Sefer Yeẓirah," a cosmogony based upon the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and connected with Jewish chronology and Messianology, while at the same time insisting upon the heptad as the holy number rather than upon the decadic system adopted by the later haggadists and the "Sefer Yeẓirah" (ch. ii. 23; compare Midr. Tadshe vi. and Charles's note, vi. 29 et seq.; Epstein, in "Rev. Et. Juives," xxii. 11; and regarding the number seven compare Ethiopic Enoch, lxxvii. 4 et seq. [see Charles's note]; Lev. R. xxix.; Philo, "De Opificios Mundi," 80-43, and Ab. v. 1-3; Ḥag. 12a). The Pythagorean idea of the creative powers of numbers and letters, upon which the "Sefer Yeẓirah" is founded, and which was known in tannaitic times—compare Rab's saying:"Bezalel knew how to combine [ ] the letters by which heaven and earth were created" (Ber. 55a), and the saying of R. Judah b. Ilai (Men. 29b), quoted, with similar sayings of Rab, in Bacher, "Ag. Bab. Amor." pp. 18, 19—is here proved to be an old cabalistic conception. In fact, the belief in the magic power of the letters of the Tetragrammaton and other names of the Deity (compare Enoch, lxi. 3 et seq.; Prayer of Manasses; Ḳid. 71a; Eccl. R. iii. 11; Yer. Ḥag. ii. 77c) seems to have originated in Chaldea (see Lenormant, "Chaldean Magic," pp. 29, 43). Whatever, then, the theurgic Cabala was, which, under the name of "Sefer (or "Hilkot" Yeẓirah," induced Babylonian rabbis of the fourth century to "create a calf by magic" (Sanh. 65b, 67b; Zunz, "G. V." 2d ed., p. 174, by a false rationalism ignores or fails to account for a simple though strange fact!), an ancient tradition seems to have coupled the name of this theurgic "Sefer Yeẓirah" with the name of Abraham as one accredited with the possession of esoteric wisdom and theurgic powers (see Abraham, Apocalypse of, and Abraham, Testament of; Beer, "Das Leben Abrahams," pp. 207 et seq.; and especially Testament of Abraham, Recension B, vi., xviii.; compare Kohler, in "Jew. Quart. Rev." vii. 584, note). As stated by Jellinek ("Beiträge zur Kabbalah," i. 3), the very fact that Abraham, and not a Talmudical hero like Akiba, is introduced in the "Sefer Yeẓirah," at the close, as possessor of the Wisdom of the Alphabet, indicates an old tradition, if not the antiquity of the book itself.
The "wonders of the Creative Wisdom" can also be traced from the "Sefer Yeẓirah," back to Ben Sira, l.c.; Enoch, xlii. 1, xlviii. 1, lxxxii. 2, xcii. 1; Slavonic Enoch, xxx. 8, xxxiii. 3 (see Charles's note for further parallels); IV Esdras xiv. 46; Soṭah xv. 3; and the Merkabah-travels to Test. Abraham, x.; Test. Job, xi. (see Kohler, in Kohut Memorial Volume, pp. 282-288); and the Baruch Apocalypse throughout, and even II Macc. vii. 22, 28, betray cabalistic traditions and terminologies.
Gnosticism and Cabala.
But especially does <A class=cross href="http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=280&letter=G">Gnosticism testify to the antiquity of the Cabala. Of Chaldean origin, as suggested by Kessler (see "Mandæans," in Herzog-Hauck, "Real-Encyc.") and definitively shown by Anz ("Die Frage nach dem Ursprung des Gnostizismus," 1879), Gnosticism was Jewish in character long before it became Christian (see Joël, "Blicke in die Religionsgeschichte," etc., 1880, i. 203; Hönig, "Die Ophiten," 1889; Friedländer, "Der Vorchristliche Jüdische Gnostizismus," 1898; idem, "Der Antichrist," 1901). Gnosticism—that is, the cabalistic "Ḥokmah" (wisdom), translated into "Madda' " (Aramaic, "Manda' " = knowledge of things divine)—seems to have been the first attempt on the part of the Jewish sages to give the empirical mystic lore, with the help of Platonic and Pythagorean or Stoic ideas, a speculative turn; hence the danger of heresy from which Akiba and Ben Zoma strove to extricate themselves, and of which the systems of Philo, an adept in Cabala (see "De Cherubim," 14; "De Sacrificiis Abelis et Caini," 15; "De Eo Quod Deterius Potiori Insidiatur," 48; "Quis Rerum Divinarum Heres Sit," 22), and of Paul (see Matter, "History of Gnosticism," ii.), show many pitfalls (<A class=cross href="http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=280&letter=G">see Gnosticism, Minim). It was the ancient Cabala which, while allegorizing the Song of Songs, spoke of Adam Ḳadmon, or the God-man, of the "Bride of God," and hence of "the mystery of the union of powers" in God (see Conybeare, "Philo's Contemplative Life," p. 304), before Philo, Paul, the Christian Gnostics, and the medieval Cabala did. Speculative Cabala of old (IV Esd. iii. 21; Wisdom ii. 24) spoke of "the germ of poison from the serpent transmitted from Adam to all generations" (  ) before Paul and R. Johanan ('Ab. Zarah 22b) referred to it. And while the Gnostic classification of souls into pneumatic, psychic, and hylic ones can be traced back to Plato (see Joël, l.c. p. 132), Paul was not the first (or only one) to adopt it in his system (see Ḥag. 14b;-Cant. R. i. 3, quoted by Joël, compare Gen. R. xiv., where the five names for the soul are dwelt upon).
Cabalistic Dualism.
The whole dualistic system of good and of evil powers, which goes back to Zoroastrianism and ultimately to old Chaldea, can be traced through Gnosticism; having influenced the cosmology of the ancient Cabala before it reached the medieval one. So is the conception underlying the cabalistic tree, of the right side being the source of light and purity, and the left the source of darkness and impurity ("siṭra yemina we siṭra aḥara), found among the Gnostics (see Irenæus, "Adversus Hæreses," i. 5, § 1; 11, § 2; ii. 24, § 6; Epiphanius, "Hæres," xxxii. 1, 2; "Clementine Homilies," vii. 3; compare Cant. R. i. 9; Matt. xxv. 33; Plutarch, "De Isiḳe," 48; Anz, l.c. 111). The fact also that the "Ḳelippot" (the scalings of impurity), which are so prominent in the medieval Cabala, are found in the old Babylonian incantations (see Sayce, "Hibbert Lectures," 1887, p. 472; Delitzsch, "Assyrisches Wörterbuch," s.v.  ), is evidence in favor of the antiquity of most of the cabalistic material.
It stands to reason that the secrets of the theurgic Cabala are not lightly divulged; and yet the Testament of Solomon recently brought to light the whole system of conjuration of angels and demons, by which the evil spirits were exorcised; even the magic sign or seal of King Solomon, known to the medieval Jew as the Magen Dawid, has been resurrected (see Conybeare, in "Jew. Quart. Rev." xi. 1-45; also Exorcism).
To the same class belongs the "Sefer Refu'ot" (The Book of Healing), containing the prescriptions against all the diseases inflicted by demons, which Noah wrote according to the instructions given by the angel Raphael and handed over to his son Shem (Book of Jubilees, x. 1-14; Jellinek, "B. H." iii. 155-160; Introduction, p. xxx.). It was identified with the "Sefer Refu'ot" in possession of King Solomon and hidden afterward by King Hezekiah (see Pes. iv. 9, 56a; "B. H." l.c. p. 160; Josephus, "Ant." viii. 2, § 5; compare idem, "B. J." ii. 8, § 6, and the extensive literature in Schürer, "Gesch. des Volkes Israel," 3d ed., iii. 2, 99 et seq.), whereas the secret of the black art, or of healing by demonic powers, was transmitted to heathen tribes, to "the sons of Keṭurah" (Sanh. 91a) or the Amorites (compare Enoch, x. 7).So striking is the resemblance between the Shi\'ur Ḳomah and the anthropomorphic description of the Deity by the Gnostics (see Irenæus, l.c. i. 14, § 3) and the letters of the alphabet laid across the body in Atbash ( ), or Alpha and Omega order, forming the limbs of the Macrocosmos, that the one casts light upon the other, as Gaster (in "Monatsschrift," 1893, p. 221) has shown. But so have "the garments of light," "the male and the female nature," "the double face," the eye, hair, arm, head, and crown of "the King of Glory," taken from the Song of Solomon, I Chron. xxix. 11; Ps. lxviii. 18, and other familiar texts, even "the endless" (En-Sof = ' Agr;πέραντος), their parallels in ancient Gnostic writings (see Schmidt, "Gnostische Schriften in Koptischer Sprache," 1892, pp. 278, 293, 310, and elsewhere). On the other hand, both the mystic Cross ("Staurus" = X = the letter tav of old; see Jewish Encyclopedia, i. 612b; Irenæus, l.c. i. 2, § 3; Justin, "Apology," i. 40; and Joël, l.c. p. 147) and the enigmatic primal "Ḳav laḳav," or "Ḳavḳkav," taken from Isa. xxviii. 10, receive strange light from the ancient cabalistic cosmogony, which, based upon Job xxxviii. 4 et seq., spoke of "the measuring-line"—Ḳav, the  (Isa. xxxiv. 11; compare  , Gen. R. i. after Ezek. xl. 3)—drawn "crosswise"— (see Midr. ha-Gadol, ed. Schechter, 11; compare   , Ḥag. xii. 1, and Joël, l.c.), and consequently applied also the term  (Ḳav le-ḳav), taken from Isa. xxviii. 10, to the prime motive power of creation (see Irenæus, l.c. i. 24, §§ 5, 6; Schmidt, l.c. p. 215; compare Matter, "Gnosticism," ii. 58; Joël, l.c. p. 141). This was to express the divine power that measured matter while setting it in motion; whereas the idea of God setting to the created world its boundary was found expressed in the name  ("the Almighty"), who says to the world  "(This sufficeth").
With the scanty materials at the disposal of the student of Gnosticism, it seems premature and hazardous at present to assert with certainty the close relationship existing between it and the ancient Cabala, as Matter, in his "History of Gnosticism," 1828 (German translation, 1833 and 1844), and Gfroerer, in his voluminous and painstaking work, "Gesch. des Urchristenthums," 1838, i. and ii., have done. Nevertheless it may be stated without hesitation that the investigations of Grätz ("Gnosticism und Judenthum," 1846), of Joël ("Religionsphilosophie des Sohar," 1849), and of other writers on the subject must be resumed on a new basis. It is also certain that the similarities, pointed out by Siegfried ("Philo von Alexandria," pp. 289-299), between the doctrines of Philo and those of the Zohar and the Cabala in general, are due to intrinsic relation rather than to mere copying.
As a rule, all that is empiric rather than speculative, and that strikes one as grossly anthropomorphic and mythological in the Cabala or Haggadah, such as the descriptions of the Deity as contained in the "Sifra de Zeni'uta" and "Iddra Zuṭṭa" of the Zohar, and similar passages in "Sefer Aẓilut" and "Raziel," belongs to a prerationalistic period, when no Simon ben Yoḥai lived to curse the teacher who represented the sons of God as having sexual organs and committing fornication (see Gen. R. xxvi.; compare Vita Adæ et Evæ, iii. 4, with Enoch, vii. 1 et seq.; also compare Test. Patr., Reuben, 5; Book of Jubilees, v. 1, and particularly xv. 27). Such matter may with a high degree of probability be claimed as ancient lore or Cabala (= "old tradition").
And as to speculative Cabala, it was not Persia with her tenth-century Sufism, but Alexandria of the first century or earlier, with her strange commingling of Egyptian, Chaldean, Judean, and Greek culture, that furnished the soil and the seeds for that mystic philosophy which knew how to blend the wisdom and the folly of the ages and to lend to every superstitious belief or practise a profound meaning. There sprang up that magic literature which showed the name of the Jewish God ( ) and of the Patriarchs placed alongside of pagan deities and demons, and the Hermes books (  , as copyists wrote for  —not "Homeros"—see Kohler, "Jew. Quart. Rev." v. 415, note), which, claiming an equal rank with the Biblical writings, enticed also Jewish thinkers. But above all it was Neoplatonism which produced that state of enthusiasm and entrancement that made people "fly in the air" by "the wagon of the soul" ( ) and achieve all kinds of miracles by way of hallucinations and visions. It gave rise to those Gnostic songs ( ; Ḥag. 15b; Grätz, l.c. p. 16) which flooded also Syria and Palestine (see Gruppe, "Die Griechischen Culte und Mysterien," i. 1886, pp. 329, 443, 494, 497, 659; Von Harless, "Das Buch von den Ægyptischen Mysterien," 1858, pp. 13-20, 53-66, 75, and Dieterich, "Abraxas," 1891). The whole principle of emanation, with its idea of evil inherent in matter as the dross ( ) is found there (see Von Harless, l.c. p. 20), and the entire theurgic Cabala ( ) is in all its detail developed there; even the spirit-rapping and table-turning done in the seventeenth century by German cabalists by means of "shemot" (magic incantations; for the literature see Von Harless, l.c. pp. 130-132) have there their prototypes (Von Harless, l.c. p. 107).K.
—History and System:
This remarkable product of Jewish intellectual activity can not be satisfactorily estimated as a whole unless the religioethical side of the Cabala is more strongly emphasized than has been the case heretofore. It constantly falls back upon Scripture for its origin and authenticity, and for its speculative-pantheistic and anthropomorphic-prophetic tendencies. While mysticism in general is the expression of the intensest religious feeling, where reason lies dormant, Jewish mysticism is essentially an attempt to harmonize universal reason with the Scriptures; and the allegorical interpretation of the Biblical writings by the Alexandrians as well as by the Palestinians (see Allegorical Interpretation) may justly be regarded as its starting-point. These interpretations had their origin in the conviction that the truths of Greek philosophy were already contained in Scripture, although it was given only to the select few to lift the veil and to discern them beneath the letter of the Bible.
Mystic Doctrines in Talmudic Times.
In Talmudic times the terms "Ma'aseh Bereshit" (History of Creation) and "Ma'aseh Merkabah"(History of the Divine Throne = Chariot; Ḥag. ii. 1; Tosef., ib.) clearly indicate the Midrashic nature of these speculations; they are really based upon Gen. i. and Ezek. i. 4-28; while the names "Sitre Torah" (Ḥag. 13a) and "Raze Torah" (Ab. vi. 1) indicate their character as secret lore. In contrast to the explicit statement of Scripture that God created not only the world, but also the matter out of which it was made, the opinion is expressed in very early times that God created the world from matter He found ready at hand—an opinion probably due to the influence of the Platonic-Stoic cosmogony (compare Philo, "De Opificiis Mundi," ii., who states this as a doctrine of Moses; see Siegfried, "Philo von Alexandria," p. 230). Eminent Palestinian teachers hold the doctrine of the preexistence of matter (Gen. R. i. 5, iv. 6), in spite of the protest of Gamaliel II. (ib. i. 9).
The Six Elements.
A Palestinian Midrash of the fourth century (see Epstein, in "Rev. Etudes Juives," xxix. 77) asserts that three of the elements—namely, water, air, and fire—existed before the creation of the world; that water then produced the darkness, fire produced light, and air produced wisdom ( = "air" = "wisdom"), and the whole world thereupon was made by the combination of these six elements (Ex. R. xv. 22). The gradual condensation of a primal substance into visible matter, a fundamental doctrine of the Cabala, is already to be found in Yer. Ḥag. ii. 77a, where it is said that the first water which existed was condensed into snow; and out of this the earth was made. This is the ancient Semitic conception of the "primal ocean," known to the Babylonians as "Apsu" (compare Jastrow, "Religion of Babylonia"), and called by the Gnostics βύθος =  (Anz, "Die Frage nach dem Ursprung des Gnostizismus," p. 98). Rab's enumeration of the ten objects created on the first day—namely, heaven, earth, tohu, bohu, light, darkness, wind, water, day, and night (Ḥag. 12a) [the Book of Jubilees (ii. 2) has seven.—K.]—shows the conception of "primal substances" held by the rabbis of the third century. It was an attempt to Judaize the un-Jewish conception of primal substances by representing them also as having been created. Compare the teaching: "God created worlds after worlds, and destroyed them, until He finally made one of which He could say, 'This one pleases Me, but the others did not please Me' " (Gen. R. ix. 2). See also "Agadat Shir ha-Shirim," ed. Schechter, p. 6, line 58.
So, also, was the doctrine of the origin of light made a matter of mystical speculation, as instanced by a haggadist of the third century, who communicated to his friend "in a whisper" the doctrine that "God wrapped Himself in a garment of light, with which He illuminates the earth from one end to the other" (Gen. R. iii. 4; see Abraham, Apocalypse of; compare Ex. R. xv. 22: "After He had clothed Himself in light, He created the world"). Closely related to this view is the statement made by R. Meïr, "that the infinite God limited or contracted Himself [ ] in order to reveal Himself" (Gen. R. iv. 4; Ex. R. xxxiv. 1). This is the germ of the Cabala doctrine of the "Ẓimẓum," in idea as well as in terminology.
God in the Theosophy of the Talmud.
In dwelling upon the nature of God and the universe, the mystics of the Talmudic period asserted, in contrast to Biblical transcendentalism, that "God is the dwelling-place of the universe; but the universe is not the dwelling-place of God" (Gen. R. lxviii. 9; Midr. Teh. xc.; Ex. xxiv. 11, LXX.) Possibly the designation  ("place") for God, so frequently found in Talmudic-Midrashic literature, is due to this conception, just as Philo, in commenting on Gen. xxviii. 11 (compare Gen. R. l.c.) says, "God is called 'ha maḳom' [place] because He encloses the universe, but is Himself not enclosed by anything" ("De Somniis," i. 11). Spinoza may have had this passage in mind when he said that the ancient Jews did not separate God from the world. This conception of God is not only pantheistic, but also highly mystical, since it postulates the union of man with God (compare Creseas, "Or Adonai," i.); and both these ideas were further developed in the later Cabala. Even in very early times Palestinian as well as Alexandrian theology recognized the two attributes of God, "middat hadin," the attribute of justice, and "middat ha-raḥamim," the attribute of mercy (Sifre, Deut. 27; Philo, "De Opificiis Mundi," 60); and so is the contrast between justice and mercy a fundamental doctrine of the Cabala. Even the hypostasization of these attributes is ancient, as may be seen in the remark of a tanna of the beginning of the second century C.E. (Ḥag. 14a). Other hypostasizations are represented by the ten agencies through which God created the world; namely, wisdom, insight, cognition, strength, power, inexorableness, justice, right, love, and mercy (Ḥag. 12a; Ab. R. N. xxxvii. counts only seven, while Ab. R. N., version B, ed. Schechter, xliii., counts ten, not entirely identical with those of the Talmud). While the Sefirot are based on these ten creative potentialities, it is especially the personification of wisdom ( ) which, in Philo, represents the totality of these primal ideas; and the Targ. Yer. i., agreeing with him, translates the first verse of the Bible as follows: "By wisdom God created the heaven and the earth." So, also, the figure of Meṭaṭron passed into the Cabala from the Talmud, where it played the rôle of the demiurgos (see Gnosticism), being expressly mentioned as God (Sanh. 38b; compare Antinomianism, note 1). Mention may also be made of the seven preexisting things enumerated in an old Baraita; namely, the Torah (="Ḥokmah"), repentance (= mercy), paradise and hell (= justice), the throne of God, the (heavenly) Temple, and the name of the Messiah (Pes. 54a). Although the origin of this doctrine must be sought probably in certain mythological ideas, the Platonic doctrine of preexistence has modified the older, simpler conception, and the preexistence of the seven must therefore be understood as an "ideal" preexistence (see Ginzberg, "Die Haggada bei den Kirchenvätern," etc., pp. 2-10), a conception that was later more fully developed in the Cabala.
The attempts of the mystics to bridge the gulfbetween God and the world are especially evident in the doctrine of the preexistence of the soul [compare Slavonic Enoch, xxiii. 5, and Charles's note.—K.] and of its close relation to God before it enters the human body—a doctrine taught by the Hellenistic sages (Wisdom viii. 19) as well as by the Palestinian rabbis (Ḥag. 12b; 'Ab. Zarah 5a, etc.).
The Pious.
Closely connected herewith is the doctrine that the pious are enabled to ascend toward God even in this life, if they know how to free themselves from the trammels that bind the soul to the body (see Ascension). Thus were the first mystics enabled to disclose the mysteries of the world beyond. According to Anz, l.c., and Bousset, "Die Himmelreise der Seele," in "Archiv für Religionswissenschaft," iv. 136 et seq., the central doctrine of Gnosticism—a movement closely connected with Jewish mysticism—was nothing else than the attempt to liberate the soul and unite it with God. This conception explains the great prominence of angels and spirits in both the earlier and the later Jewish mysticism. Through the employment of mysteries, incantations, names of angels, etc., the mystic assures for himself the passage to God, and learns the holy words and formulas with which he overpowers the evil spirits that try to thwart and destroy him. Gaining thereby the mastery over them, he naturally wishes to exercise it even while still on earth, and tries to make the spirits serviceable to him. So, too, were the Essenes familiar with the idea of the journey to heaven (see Bousset, l.c. p. 143, explaining Josephus, "Ant." xviii. 1, § 5); and they were also masters of angelology. The practise of magic and incantation, the angelology and demonology, were borrowed from Babylonia, Persia, and Egypt; but these foreign elements were Judaized in the process, and took the form of the mystical adoration of the name of God and of speculations regarding the mysterious power of the Hebrew alphabet (see Ber. 55a; compare Pesiḳ. R. 21 [ed. Friedmann, p. 109a], "the name of God creates and destroys worlds"), to become, finally, foundations of the philosophy of the "Sefer Yeẓirah."
The Syzygies.
Another pagan conception which, in refined form, passed into the Cabala through the Talmud, was the so-called  ("the mystery of sex"). [Compare Eph. v. 33, and Bride, and Joel, l.c., pp. 158 et seq.—K.] Possibly this old conception underlies the Talmudical passages referring to the mystery of marriage, such as "the Shekinah dwells between man and woman" (Soṭah 17a). An old Semitic view (see Ba\'al) regards the upper waters compare Slavonic Book of Enoch, iii.; Test. Patr., Levi, 2; Abraham, Testament of) as masculine, and the lower waters as feminine, their union fructifying the earth (Gen. R. xiii.; Wertheimer, "Batte Midrashot," i. 6. Compare the passage, "Everything that exists has a mate [ ]: Israel is the mate of the Sabbath; while the other days pair among themselves," Gen. R. xi. 8). Thus the Gnostic theory of syzygies (pairs) was adopted by the Talmud, and later was developed into a system by the Cabala.
The doctrine of emanation, also, common to both Gnosticism and the Cabala, is represented by a tanna of the middle of the second century C.E. (Gen. R. iv. 4; R. Meïr, "Parable of the Spring"). The idea that "the pious actions of the just increase the heavenly power" (Pesiḳ., ed. Buber, xxvi. 166b); that "the impious rely on their gods," but that "the just are the support of God" (Gen. R. lxix. 3), gave rise to the later cabalistic doctrine of man's influence on the course of nature, inasmuch as the good and the evil actions of man reenforce respectively the good or the evil powers of life.
The heterogeneous elements of this Talmudic mysticism are as yet unfused; the Platonic-Alexandrian, Oriental-theosophic, and Judæo-allegorical ingredients being still easily recognizable and not yet elaborated into the system of the Cabala. Jewish monotheism was still transcendentalism. But as mysticism attempted to solve the problems of creation and world government by introducing sundry intermediary personages, creative potentialities such as Meṭaṭron, Shekinah, and so on, the more necessary it became to exalt God in order to prevent His reduction to a mere shadow; this exaltation being rendered possible by the introduction of the pantheistic doctrine of emanation, which taught that in reality nothing existed outside of God. Yet, if God is "the place of the world" and everything exists in Him, it must be the chief task of life to feel in union with God—a condition which the Merkabah-travelers, or, as the Talmud calls them, "the frequenters of paradise," strove to attain. Here is the point where speculation gives place to imagination. The visions which these mystics beheld in their ecstasies were considered as real, giving rise within the pale of Judaism to an anthropomorphic mysticism, which took its place beside that of the pantheists. Although Talmudic-Midrashic literature has left few traces of this movement (compare, e.g., Ber. 7a, Sanh. 95b), the Rabbis opposing such extravagances, yet the writings of the church fathers bear evidence of many Judaizing Gnostics who were disciples of anthropomorphism (Origen, "De Principiis," i.; compare Clementina, Elcesaites, Minim).
Different Groups of Mystic Literature.
The mystical literature of the geonic period forms the link between the mystic speculations of the Talmud and the system of the Cabala; originating in the one and reaching completion in the other. It is extremely difficult to summarize the contents and object of this literature, which has been handed down in more or less fragmentary form. It may perhaps be most conveniently divided into three groups: (1) theosophic; (2) cosmogenetic; (3) theurgic. In regard to its literary form, the Midrashic-haggadic style may be distinguished from the liturgic-poetic style, both occurring contemporaneously. The theosophical speculations deal chiefly with the person of Meṭaṭron-Enoch, the son of Jared turned into a fiery angel, a minor Yhwh—a conception with which, as mentioned before, many mystics of the Talmudic age were occupied. Probably a large number of these Enoch books, claiming to contain the visions of Enoch, existed, of which, however, only fragments remain (see "Monatsschrift," viii. 68 et seq., and Enoch, Book of).
"Meṭaṭron-Enoch."
Curiously enough, the anthropomorphic description of God (see Shi\'ur Ḳomah) was brought into connection with Meṭaṭron-Enoch in the geonic mysticism. This vexatious piece of Jewish theosophy, which afforded to Christians as well as to Karaites (compare Agobard; Solomon b. Jeroham) a welcome opportunity for an attack upon rabbinical Judaism, existed as a separate work at the time of the Geonim. Judging from the fragments of "Shi'ur Ḳomah" (in Jellinek, "B. H." iii. 91; ii. 41; in Wertheimer, "Hekalot," ch. xi.), it represented God as a being of gigantic dimensions, with limbs, arms, hands, feet, etc. The "Shi'ur Ḳomah" must have been held in high regard by the Jews, since Saadia tried to explain it allegorically—though he doubted that the tanna Ishmael could have been the author of the work (as quoted by Judah b. Barzilai in his commentary on "Sefer Yeẓirah," pp. 20-21)—and Hai Gaon, in spite of his emphatic repudiation of all anthropomorphism, defended it ("Teshubot ha-Geonim," Lick, p. 12a). The book probably originated at a time when the anthropomorphic conception of God was current—that is, in the age of Gnosticism, receiving its literary form only in the time of the Geonim. The Clementine writings, also, expressly teach that God is a body, with members of gigantic proportions; and so did Marcion. Adam Ḳadmon, the "primal man" of the Elcesaites, was also, according to the conception of these Jewish Gnostics, of huge dimensions; viz., ninety-six miles in height and ninety-four miles in breadth; being originally androgynous, and then cleft in two, the masculine part becoming the Messiah, and the feminine part the Holy Ghost (Epiphanius, "Hæres." xxx. 4, 16, 17; liii. 1).
"Shi'ur Ḳomah."
According to Marcion, God Himself is beyond bodily measurements and limitations, and as a spirit can not even be conceived; but in order to hold intercourse with man, He created a being with form and dimensions, who ranks above the highest angels. It was, presumably, this being whose shape and stature were represented in the "Shi'ur Ḳomah," which even the strict followers of Rabbinism might accept, as may be learned from the "Kerub ha-Meyuḥad" in the German Cabala, which will be discussed later in this article.
The Heavenly Halls.
The descriptions of the heavenly halls ("Hekalot") in treatises held in high esteem at the time of the Geonim, and which have come down in rather incomplete and obscure fragments, originated, according to Hai Gaon, with those mystagogues of the Merkabah ( ), "who brought themselves into a state of entranced vision by fasting, asceticism, and prayer, and who imagined that they saw the seven halls and all that is therein with their own eyes, while passing from one hall into another (compare Ascension, and for a similar description of the Montanist ecstasy, Tertullian, "De Exhortatione Castitatis," x.). Although these Hekalot visions were to some extent productive of a kind of religious ecstasy, and were certainly of great service in the development of the liturgical poetry as shown in the Ḳedushah piyyuṭim, they contributed little to the development of speculative mysticism. This element became effective only in combination with the figure of Meṭaṭron or Meṭaṭron-Enoch, the leader of the Merkabah-travelers on their celestial journeys, who were initiated by him into the secrets of heaven, of the stars, of the winds, of the water, and of the earth, [see Meṭaṭron, and compare Mithras as driver of the Heavenly Chariot in "Dio Chrysostomus," ii. 60, ed. Dindorf; Windischmann, "Zoroastrische Studien," 1863, pp. 309-312; and Kohler, "Test. of Job," p. 292.—K.]. Hence, many cosmological doctrines originally contained in the books of Enoch were appropriated, and the transition from theosophy to pure cosmology was made possible. Thus, in the Midr. Konen (Jellinek, "B. H." ii. 23, 27), which is closely related to the "Seder Rabba di-Bereshit" (in Wertheimer, "Botte Midrashot," i. 18), the Torah, identical with the "Wisdom" of the Alexandrians, is represented as primeval and as the creative principle of the world, which produced the three primal elements, water, fire, and light, and these, in their turn, when commingled, produced the universe.
Cosmological Theories.
In the description of the "six days of creation," in the Midrash in question, the important statement is made that the water disobeyed God's command—an old mythological doctrine of God's contest with matter (here represented by water), which in the later Cabala serves to account for the presence of evil in the world. In "Seder Rabba di-Bereshit," however, the contest is between the masculine and feminine waters which strove to unite themselves, but which God separated in order to prevent the destruction of the world by water; placing the masculine waters in the heavens, and the feminine waters on the earth (l.c. p. 6). Independently of the creation, the "Baraita de-Middot ha-'Olam" and the "Ma'aseh Bereshit" describe the regions of the world with paradise in the east and the nether world in the west. All these descriptions—some of them found as early as the second pre-Christian century, in the Test. of Abraham and in Enoch; and, later on, in the Christian apocalyptic literature—are obviously remnants of ancient Essene cosmology.
Theurgic Cabala.
The mysticism of this time had a practical as well as a theoretical side. Any one knowing the names and functions of the angels could control all nature and all its powers (compare, for example, Lam. R. ii. 8; and Hananeel in Rabbinical Literature). Probably entrusted formerly only to oral tradition, the ancient names were written down by the mystics of the geonic period; and so Hai Gaon (in Eliezer Ashkenazi's collection, "Ta'am Zeḳenim," p. 56b) mentions a large number of such works as existing in his time: the "Sefer ha-Yashar," "Ḥarba de-Mosheh," "Raza Rabbah," "Sod Torah," "Hekalot Rabbati," "Hekalot Zuṭrati." Of all these works, aside from the Hekalot, only the "Ḥarba de-Mosheh" has recently been published by Gaster ("The Sword of Moses," in "Jour. Royal Asiatic Soc." 1896; also printed separately). This book consists almost entirely of mystical names by means of which man may guard himself against sickness,enemies, and other ills, and may subjugate nature. These and other works later on formed the basis of the theurgic Cabala. The amplifications upon paradise and hell, with their divisions, occupy a totally independent and somewhat peculiar position in the geonic mysticism. They are ascribed for the greater part to the amora Joshua b. Levi; but, in addition to this hero of the Haggadah, Moses himself is alleged to have been the author of the work "Ma'ayan Ḥokmah" (compare Soṭah ix. 15, which gives an account of heaven and the angels).
Mystical Literature in Geonic Times.
Aside from the "Sefer Yeẓirah," which occupies a position of its own, the following is nearly a complete list of the mystic literature of the time of the Geonim, as far as it is preserved and known to-day: (1) "Alfa Beta de Rabbi Akiba," in two versions (Jellinek, "B. H." iii.); (2) "Gan 'Eden," in different versions (Jellinek, l.c. ii., iii., v.); (3) "[Maseket] Gehinnom" (Jellinek, l.c. i.); (4) "Ḥarba de-Mosheh," ed. Gaster, 1896, reprinted from "Jour. Royal Asiatic Soc," 1896; (5) "Ḥibbuṭ ha-Ḳeber" (Jellinek, l.c. i.); (6) "Hekalot," in several recensions (Jellinek, l.c. ii., iii.; Wertheimer, "Jerusalem," 1889, the text varying considerably from that of Jellinek: the Book of Enoch is likewise a version of "Hekalot"); (7) "Haggadot Shema' Yisrael" (Jellinek, l.c. v.; also belonging probably to the time of the Geonim); (8) "[Midrash] Konen" (printed several times; also in Jellinek, l.c. i.); (9) "Ma'aseh Merkabah" (in Wertheimer, "Botte Midrashot," ii.; a very ancient "Hekalot" version); (10) "Ma'aseh de Rabbi Joshua b. Levi," in different recensions (compare Apocalyptic Literature, Neo-Hebraic, No. 5); (11) "Ma'ayan Ḥokmah" (Jellinek, l.c. i.); (12) "Seder Rabba di-Bereshit," in Wertheimer, l.c. i.); (13) "Shimmusha Rabba we-Shimmusha Zuṭṭa" (Jellinek, l.c. vi.).
Mystical fragments, have been preserved in Pirḳe R. El., Num. R., and Midr. Tadshe; also in the "Book of Raziel," which, though composed by a German cabalist of the thirteenth century, contains important elements of the geonic mysticism.
Origin of the Speculative Cabala.
Eleazar of Worms' statement that a Babylonian scholar, Aaron b. Samuel by name, brought the mystic doctrine from Babylonia to Italy about the middle of the ninth century, has been found to be actually true. Indeed, the doctrines of the "Kerub ha-Meyuḥad," of the mysterious power of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and of the great importance of the angels, are all found in the geonic mystic lore. Even those elements that seem later developments may have been transmitted orally, or may have formed parts of the lost works of the old mystics. If, now, the German Cabala of the thirteenth century is to be regarded as merely a continuation of geonic mysticism, it follows that the speculative Cabala arising simultaneously in France and Spain must have had a similar genesis. It is the Sefer Yeẓirah which thus forms the link between the Cabala and the geonic mystics. The date as well as the origin of this singular book are still moot points, many scholars even assigning it to the Talmudic period. It is certain, however, that at the beginning of the ninth century the work enjoyed so great a reputation that no less a man than Saadia wrote a commentary on it. The question of the relation between God and the world is discussed in this book, the oldest philosophical work in the Hebrew language.
The "Sefer Yeẓirah."
The basic doctrines of the "Sefer Yeẓirah" are as follows: The fundamentals of all existence are the ten Sefirot. These are the ten principles that mediate between God and the universe. They include the three primal emanations proceeding from the Spirit of God: (1)  (literally, "air" or "spirit," probably to be rendered "spiritual air"), which produced (2) "primal water," which, in turn, was condensed into (3) "fire." Six others are the three dimensions in both directions (left and right); these nine, together with the Spirit of God, form the ten Sefirot. They are eternal, since in them is revealed the dominion of God. The first three preexisted ideally as the prototypes of creation proper, which became possible when infinite space, represented by the six other Sefirot, was produced. The Spirit of God, however, is not only the begining but is also the end of the universe; for the Sefirot are closely connected with one another, "and their end is in their origin, as the flame is in the coal."
While the three primal elements constitute the substance of things, the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet constitute the form. The letters hover, as it were, on the boundary-line between the spiritual and the physical world; for the real existence of things is cognizable only by means of language, i.e., the human capacity for conceiving thought. As the letters resolve the contrast between the substance and the form of things, they represent the solvent activity of God; for everything that is exists by means of contrasts, which find their solution in God, as, for instance, among the three primal elements, the contrasts of fire and water are resolved into  ("air" or "spirit").
Mysticism of Jewish Heretics.
The importance of this book for the later Cabala, overestimated formerly, has been underestimated in modern times. The emanations here are not the same as those posited by the cabalists; for no graduated scale of distance from the primal emanations is assumed, nor are the Sefirot here identical with those enumerated in the later Cabala. But the agreement in essential points between the later Cabala and the "Sefer Yeẓirah" must not be overlooked. Both posit mediate beings in place of immediate creation out of nothing; and these mediate beings were not created, like those posited in the various cosmogonies, but are emanations. The three primal elements in the "Sefer Yeẓirah," which at first existed only ideally and then became manifest in form, are essentially identical with the worlds of Aẓilut and Beriah of the later Cabala. In connection with the "Sefer Yeẓirah" the mystical speculations of certain Jewish sects must be mentioned, which, toward the year 800, began to spread doctrines that for centuries had been known only to a few initiated ones. Thus the Maghariyites taught that God, who is too exalted to have any attributes ascribed to Him in Scripture, created an angel to be the real ruler of the world [compare the  and Meṭaṭron in the Talmud.—K.]; and to this angel everything must be referred that Scripture recounts of God (Ḳirḳisani, extracts from his manuscript quoted by Harkavy in Rabbinowicz's Hebrew translation of Grätz's "Gesch. der Juden," iii. 496; separately under the title "Le-Ḳorot ha-Kittot be-Yisrael"). This Jewish form of the Gnostic Demiurge, which was also known to the Samaritans (Baneth, "Marquah, on the twenty two Letters of the Alphabet," pp. 52-54), was accepted with slight modifications by the Karaites (Judah Hadassi, "Eshkol ha-Kofer," 25c, 26b) as well as by the German cabalists, as will be shown further on. Benjamin Nahawendi seems to have known of other emanations in addition to this Demiurge (see Harkavy, l.c. v. 16). These, of course, were not new theories originating at this time, but an awakening of Jewish Gnosticism, that had been suppressed for centuries by the increasing preponderance of Rabbinism, and now reappeared not by chance, at a time when Sadduceeism, the old enemy of Rabbinism, also reappeared, under the name of Karaism. But while the latter, as appealing to the masses, was energetically and even bitterly attacked by the representatives of Rabbinism, they made allowance for a revival of Gnosticism. For, although the cabalistic treatises ascribed to certain geonim were probably fabricated in later times, it is certain that numbers of the geonim, even many who were closely connected with the academies, were ardent disciples of mystic lore. The father of the German Cabala was, as is now known, a Babylonian (see Aaron b. Samuel ha-Nasi), who emigrated to Italy in the first half of the ninth century, whence the Kalonymides later carried their teachings to Germany, where in the thirteenth century an esoteric doctrine, essentially identical with that which prevailed in Babylon about 800, is accordingly found.
Influence of Greco-Arabic Philosophy.
While the branch of the Cabala transplanted to Italy remained untouched by foreign influences, the reaction of Greco-Arabic philosoph yon Jewish mysticism became apparent in the Arabic-speaking countries. The following doctrines of Arab philosophy especially influenced and modified Jewish mysticism, on account of the close relationship between the two. The "Faithful Brothers of Basra," as well as the Neoplatonic Aristotelians of the ninth century, have left their marks on the Cabala. The brotherhood taught, similarly to early Gnosticism, that God, the highest Being, exalted above all differences and contrasts, also surpassed everything corporeal and spiritual; hence, the world could only be explained by means of emanations. The graduated scale of emanations was as follows: (1) the creating spirit (νοῦς); (2) the directing spirit, or the world-soul; (3) primal matter; (4) active nature, a power proceeding from the world-soul; (5) the abstract body, also called secondary matter; (6) the world of the spheres; (7) the elements of the sublunary world; and (8) the world of minerals, plants, and animals composed of these elements. These eight form, together with God, the absolute One, who is in and with everything, the scale of the nine primal substances, corresponding to the nine primary numbers and the nine spheres. These nine numbers of the "Faithful Brothers" (compare De Boer, "Gesch. der Philosophie im Islam," p. 84; Dieterici, "Die Sogenannte Theologie des Aristoteles," p. 38; idem, "Weltseele," p. 15) have been changed by a Jewish philosopher of the middle of the eleventh century into ten, by counting the four elements not as a unit, but as two ("Torat ha-Nefesh," ed. Isaac Broydé, pp. 70, 75; compare, also, Guttmann, in "Monatsschrift," xlii. 450).
Gabirol's, Influence upon the Cabala.
Solomon ibn Gabirol's doctrines influenced the development of the Cabala more than any other philosophical system; and his views on the will of God and on the intermediate beings between God and the creation were especially weighty. Gabirol considers God as an absolute unity, in whom form and substance are identical; hence, no attributes can be ascribed to God, and man can comprehend God only by means of the beings emanating from Him. Since God is the beginning of all things, and composite substance the last of all created things, there must be intermediate links between God and the universe; for there is necessarily a distance between the beginning and the end, which otherwise would be identical.
The first intermediate link is the will of God, the hypostasis of all things created; Gabirol meaning by will the creative power of God manifested at a certain point of time, and then proceeding in conformity with the laws of the emanations. As this will unites two contrasts—namely, God, the actor, and substance, the thing acted upon—it must necessarily partake of the nature of both, being factor and factum at the same time. The will of God is immanent in everything; and from it have proceeded the two forms of being, "materia universalis" (ὕλη) and "forma universalis." But only God is "creator ex nihilo": all intermediary beings create by means of the graduated emanation of what is contained in them potentially. Hence, Gabirol assumes five intermediary beings ( ) between God and matter; namely: (1) will; (2) matter in general and form; (3) the universal spirit ( ); (4) the three souls, namely, vegetative, animal, and thinking soul; and (5) the nature, the motive power, of bodies. Gabirol (quoted by Ibn Ezra, commentary on Isa. xliii. 7) also mentions the three cabalistic worlds, Beriah, Yeẓirah, and 'Asiyah; while he considers Aẓilut to be identical with the will. The theory of the concentration of God, by which the Cabala tries to explain the creation of the finite out of the infinite, is found in mystical form in Gabirol also (see Munk, "Mélanges," pp. 284, 285).
Still, however great the influence which Gabirol exercised on the development of the Cabala, it would be incorrect to say that the latter is derived chiefly from him. The fact is that when Jewish mystic lore came in contact with Arabic-Jewish philosophy, it appropriated those elements that appealed to it; this being especially the case with Gabirol's philosophy on account of its mystical character. But other philosophical systems, from Saadia to Maimonides, were also laid under contribution. Thus the important German cabalist Eleazar of Worms was strongly influenced by Saadia; while Ibn Ezra's views found acceptance among the Germanas well as the Spanish cabalists. Possibly even Maimonides, the greatest representative of rationalism among the Jews of the Middle Ages, contributed to the cabalistic doctrine of the "En-Sof" by his teaching that no attributes could be ascribed to God [unless it be of Pythagorean origin (see Bloch, in Winter and Wünsche, "Jüdische Literatur," iii. 241, note 3).—K.
The German Cabala.
The esoteric doctrines of the Talmud, the mysticism of the period of the Geonim, and Arabic Neo-platonic philosophy are thus the three chief constituents of the Cabala proper as it is found in the thirteenth century. These heterogeneous elements also explain the strange fact that the Cabala appeared at the same time in two different centers of culture, under different social and political conditions, each form being entirely different in character from the other. The German Cabala is a direct continuation of geonic mysticism. Its first representative is Judah the Pious (died 1217), whose pupil, Eleazar of Worms, is its most important literary exponent. Abraham Abulafia was its last representative, half a century later. The correctness of Eleazar's statement (in Del Medigo's "Maẓref la-Ḥokmah," ed. 1890, pp. 64, 65), to the effect that the Kalonymides carried the esoteric doctrines with them from Italy to Germany about 917, has been satisfactorily established. Till the time of Eleazar these doctrines were in a certain sense the private property of the Kalonymides, and were kept secret until Judah the Pious, himself a member of this family, commissioned his pupil Eleazar to introduce the oral and written esoteric doctrine into a larger circle.
Christian and Jewish Mysticism.
The essential doctrines of this school are as follows: God is too exalted for mortal mind to comprehend, since not even the angels can form an idea of Him. In order to be visible to angels as well as to men, God created out of divine fire His  ("majesty"), also called  which has size and shape and sits on a throne in the east, as the actual representative of God. His throne is separated by a curtain ( ) on the east, south, and north from the world of angels; the side on the west being uncovered [compare, however, God's Shekinah dwelling in the east ("Apostolic Constitutions," ii. 57).—K.], so that the light of God, who is in the west, may illuminate it. All the anthropomorphic statements of Scripture refer to this "majesty" ( ), not to God Himself, but to His representative. Corresponding to the different worlds of the Spanish cabalists, the German cabalists also assume four (sometimes five) worlds; namely: (1) the world of the "glory" ( ) just mentioned; (2) the world of angels; (3) the world of the animal soul; and (4) the world of the intellectual soul. It is easy to discern that this curious theosophy is not a product of the age in which the German cabalists lived, but is made up of ancient doctrines, which, as stated above, originated in the Talmudic period. The Germans, lacking in philosophical training, exerted all the greater influence on the practical Cabala as well as on ecstatic mysticism. Just as in Spain about this time the deeply religious mind of the Jews rose in revolt against the cold Aristotelian rationalism that had begun to dominate the Jewish world through the influence of Maimonides, so the German Jews, partly influenced by a similar movement within Christianity, began to rise against the traditional ritualism. Judah the Pious (Introduction to "Sefer Ḥasidim") reproaches the Talmudists with "poring too much over the Talmud without reaching any results." Hence, the German mystics attempted to satisfy their religious needs in their own way; namely, by contemplation and meditation. Like the Christian mystics (Preger, "Gesch. der Deutschen Mystik," p. 91), who symbolized the close connection between the soul and God by the figure of marriage, the Jewish mystics described the highest degree of love of man for God in sensuous forms in terms taken from marital life.
While study of the Law was to the Talmudists the very acme of piety, the mystics accorded the first place to prayer, which was considered as a mystical progress toward God, demanding a state of ecstasy. It was the chief task of the practical Cabala to produce this ecstatic mysticism, already met with among the Merkabah-travelers of the time of the Talmud and the Geonim; hence, this mental state was especially favored and fostered by the Germans. Alphabetical and numeral mysticism constitutes the greater part of Eleazar's works, and is to be regarded simply as means to an end; namely, to reach a state of ecstasy by the proper employment of the names of God and of angels, "a state in which every wall is removed from the spiritual eye" (Moses of Tachau, in "Oẓar Neḥmad," iii. 84; compare Güdemann, "Gesch. des Erziehungswesens," i. 159 et seq.).
The point of view represented by the anonymous book "Keter Shem-Ṭob" (ed. Jellinek, 1853), ascribed to Abraham of Cologne and certainly a product of the school of Eleazar of Worms, represents the fusion of this German Cabala with the Provençal-Spanish mysticism. According to this work, the act of creation was brought about by a primal power emanating from the simple will of God. This eternal, unchangeable power transformed the potentially existing universe into the actual world by means of graduated emanations. These conceptions, originating in the school of Azriel, are herein combined with Eleazar's theories on the meaning of the Hebrew letters according to their forms and numerical values. The central doctrine of this work refers to the Tetragrammaton; the author assuming that the four letters yod, he, vaw, and he ( ) were chosen by God for His name because they were peculiarly distinguished from all other letters. Thus yod, considered graphically, appears as the mathematical point from which objects were developed, and therefore symbolizes the spirituality of God to which nothing can be equal. As its numerical value equals ten, the highest number, so there are ten classes of angels, and correspondingly the seven spheres with the two elements—fire cohering with air, and water with earth, respectively—and the One who directs them all, making together ten powers; and finally the ten Sefirot. In this way the four letters of the Tetragrammaton are explained in detail.A generation later a movement in opposition to the tendencies of this book arose in Spain; aiming to supplant speculative Cabala by a prophetic visionary one. Abraham Abulafia denied the doctrines of emanations and the Sefirot, and, going back to the German mystics, asserted that the true Cabala consisted in letter and number mysticism, which system, rightly understood, brings man into direct and close relations with the "ratio activa" ( ), the active intelligence of the universe, thus endowing him with the power of prophecy. In a certain sense Joseph b. Abraham Gikatilla, a cabalist eight years younger than Abulafia, may also be included in the German school, since he developed the letter and vowel mysticism, thereby introducing the practical Cabala into many circles. Yet Gikatilla, like his contemporary Tobias Abulafia, still hesitates between the abstract speculative Cabala of the Provençal-Spanish Jews and the concrete letter symbolism of the Germans. These two main movements are finally combined in the Zoharistic books, wherein, as Jellinek rightly says, "the syncretism of the philosophical and cabalistic ideas of the century appears complete and finished."
The Cabala in Provence.
While the German mystics could refer to authentic traditions, the cabalists of Spain and southern France were obliged to admit that they could trace their doctrines, which they designated as "the tradition" ("Ḳabbalah"; thus an Oriental scholar as early as 1223; compare Harkavy, Hebrew transl. of Grätz's "Gesch. der Juden," v. 47), to authorities no older than the twelfth century. The modern historian has greater difficulties in determining the origin of the Cabala in Provence than the cabalists themselves had; for they agreed that the esoteric doctrines had been revealed by the prophet Elijah, in the beginning of the twelfth century, to Jacob ha-Nazir, who initiated Abraham b. David of Posquières, whose son, Isaac the Blind, transmitted them further. But Isaac the Blind can not possibly be credited with being the originator of the speculative Cabala, for it is far too complicated to be the work of one man, as is evident by the writings of Azriel (born about 1160), the alleged pupil of Isaac. Azriel, moreover, speaks of the Sefirot, of the En-Sof, and of the cabalists of Spain (in Sachs's "Ha-Paliṭ," p. 45); and it is absolutely impossible that Isaac the Blind, who was not much older than Azriel (his father Abraham b. David died in 1198), could have founded a school so quickly that Spanish scholars would be able to speak of the contrast between cabalists and philosophers as Azriel does. If there be any truth in this tradition of the cabalists, it can only mean that the relation of Isaac the Blind to the speculative Cabala was the same as that of his contemporary Eleazar of Worms to German mysticism; namely, that just as the latter made the esoteric doctrines—which were for centuries in the possession of one family, or at any rate of a very small circle—common property, so Isaac introduced the doctrines of the speculative Cabala for the first time into larger circles.
It may furthermore be assumed that the speculative philosophy of Provence, like German mysticism, originated in Babylon: Neoplatonism, reaching there its highest development in the eighth and ninth centuries, could not but influence Jewish thought. Gabirol, as well as the author of "Torat ha-Nefesh," bears evidence of this influence on Jewish philosophy; while the Cabala took up the mystic elements of Neoplatonism. The Cabala, however, is not a genuine product of the Provençal Jews; for just those circles in which it is found were averse to the study of philosophy. The essential portions of the Cabala must, on the contrary, have been carried to Provence from Babylon; being known only to a small circle until Aristotelianism began to prevail, when the adherents of the speculative Cabala were forced to make their doctrine public.
The Treatise on Emanation.
The earliest literary product of the speculative Cabala is the work "Masseket Aẓilut," which contains the doctrine of the four graduated worlds as well as that of the concentration of the Divine Being. The form in which the rudiments of the Cabala are presented here, as well as the emphasis laid on keeping the doctrine secret and on the compulsory piety of the learners, is evidence of the early date of the work. At the time when "Masseket Aẓilut" was written the Cabala had not yet become a subject of general study, but was still confined to a few of the elect. The treatment is on the whole the same as that found in the mystical writings of the time of the Geonim, with which the work has much in common; hence, there is no reason for not regarding it as a product of that time. The doctrines of Meṭaṭron, and of angelology especially, are identical with those of the Geonim, and the idea of the Sefirot is presented so simply and unphilosophically that one is hardly justified in assuming that it was influenced directly by any philosophical system.
"Bahir."
Just as in the "Masseket Aẓilut" the doctrine of the ten Sefirot is based on the "Sefer Yeẓirah" (ed. Jellinek, p. 6, below), so the book Bahir, which, according to some scholars, was composed by Isaac the Blind, and which in any case originated in his school, starts from the doctrines of the "Sefer Yeẓirah," which it explains and enlarges. This book was of fundamental importance in more than one way for the development of the speculative Cabala. The Sefirot are here divided into the three chief ones—primal light, wisdom, and reason—and the seven secondary ones that have different names. This division of the Sefirot, which goes through the entire Cabala, is found as early as Pirḳe R. Eliezer III., from which the "Bahir" largely borrowed; but here for the first time the doctrine of the emanation of the Sefirot is clearly enunciated. They are conceived as the intelligible primal principles of the universe, the primary emanations of the Divine Being, that together constitute the  (τὸ πᾶν = "the universe"). The emanation is regarded, not as having taken place once, but as continuous and permanent; and the author has such an imperfect conception of the import of this idea that he regards the emanation as taking place all at once, and not in graduated series. But this assumption annihilates the whole theory of emanation, which attempts to explain the gradual transitionfrom the infinite to the finite, comprehensible only in the form of a graduated series.
Opposition to Aristotelianism.
On the whole, the contents of the book—which seems to be a compilation of loosely connected thoughts—justify the assumption that it is not the work of one man or the product of one school, but the first serious attempt to collect the esoteric doctrines that for centuries had circulated orally in certain circles of Provence, and to present them to a larger audience. The work is important because it gave to those scholars who would have nothing to do with the philosophy then current—namely, Aristotelianism—the first incentive to a thorough study of metaphysics. The first attempt to place the cabalistic doctrine of the Sefirot on a dialectic basis could have been made only by a Spanish Jew, as the Provençal Jews were not sufficiently familiar with philosophy, and the few among them that devoted themselves to this science were pronounced Aristotelians who looked with contempt upon the speculations of the cabalists.
Azriel.
It was Azriel (1160-1238), a Spaniard with philosophical training, who undertook to explain the doctrines of the Cabala to philosophers and to make it acceptable to them. It should be noted particularly that Azriel (in Sachs, "Ha-Paliṭ," p. 45) expressly says that philosophical dialectics is for him only the means for explaining the doctrines of Jewish mysticism, in order that "those also who do not believe, but ask to have everything proved, may convince themselves of the truth of the Cabala." True disciples of the Cabala were satisfied with its doctrines as they were, and without philosophical additions. Hence the actual form of the Cabala as presented by Azriel must not be regarded as absolutely identical with its original one. Starting from the doctrine of the merely negative attributes of God, as taught by the Jewish philosophy of the time (see Attributes), Azriel calls God the "En-Sof" ( ), the absolutely Infinite, that can be comprehended only as the negation of all negation. From this definition of the En-Sof, Azriel deduces the potential eternity of the world—the world with all its manifold manifestations was potentially contained within the En-Sof; and this potentially existing universe became a reality in the act of creation. The transition from the potential to the ac | |
Thursday, April 5th, 2007
with the new Tree of Life