ante
, or at least
extra, Christum
, it is most valuable as ascertaining the opinions of the learned Jews on many subjects, and the general belief concerning immortality, and a day of judgment. On this ground Whitaker might have erected a most formidable battery, that would have played on the very camp and battle-array of the Socinians, that is, of those who consider Christ only as a teacher of important truths.
In referring to the Cabala, I am not ignorant of the date of the oldest Rabbinical writings which contain or refer to this philosophy, but I coincide with Eichorn, and very many before Eichorn, that the foundations of the Cabala were laid and well known long before Christ, though not all the fanciful superstructure. I am persuaded that new light might be thrown on the Apocalypse by a careful study of the Book Sohar, and of whatever else there may be of that kind. The introduction (i. 4,) is clearly Cabala:—the
= 3, and the
seven spirits
= 10
Sephiroth