The Kabbalah: its doctrines, development, and literature

by Christian D. Ginsburg

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 the cortége when 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, entitled ‏אוצר 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, entitled ‏מאירת עינים‎ not 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 of the Sephiroth did not satisfy him. The ordinary doctrine of the Sephiroth he simply regarded as a ten unity instead of the Christian three 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,[8] and 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 Jewish religion, 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 (circa 1288), where he remained for some time, and wrote sundry Kabbalistic works.