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 or à priori maxims; III, The generally acknowledged maxims, or consensus 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 of the Sephiroth, as propounded in the Book 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 to the Sephiroth sundry names to serve as signs for recognition; and some of this class differ but little from Christians, inasmuch as they substitute a decade for the triad, 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. The ten Sephiroth sublimate gradually to the upper Sephira, called thought, crown, or primordial air, which is the root of all the other Sephiroth, and reposes in the creative En 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 the ten 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 with Aleph; 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 active νοῦς, which in its [[198]]turn again unites itself with God, as the unity to which everything must return.
“The ten Sephiroth are after a higher conception, to be traced to a higher triad, which correspond to the letters Aleph, 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 the prophetic Kabbalah 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-named Epistle to R. Solomon and the Epistle to R. Abraham, entitled the 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 entitled the 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 entitled the Book on Vowels (ספר הניקוד), or the Gate to the Points (שער הניקוד), published in the collection of seven treatises, called the 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 the ten 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 the Kabbala Denudata, Sulzbach, 1677–78. v. The Gates of Righteousness (שערי צדק), on the ten divine names answering to the ten Sephiroth, published at Riva de Trento, 1561. vi. Mysteries (סודות) connected with sundry Pentateuchal ordinances, published by Jechiel Ashkenazi in his Temple 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 called Gematria (גמטריא), Notaricon (נוטריקון), and Ziruph (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. This Doctor 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;”[11] and there is very little doubt that the Kabbalistic method of palming their notions on the text of Scripture, by means of the Gematria, Notaricon and Ziruph, suggested to him the invention of the 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.[12] It 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 the Sohar, has continued to the present day, for nearly all those who have since espoused the doctrines of this theosophy have made the Sohar their 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 the Sohar. 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]