To obtain these heavenly mysteries, which alone make the Torah superior to profane codes, definite hermeneutical rules are employed, of which the following are the most important. (1) The words of several verses in the Hebrew Scriptures which are regarded as containing a recondite sense are placed over each other, and the letters are formed into new words by reading them vertically. (2) The words of the text are ranged in squares in such a manner as to be read either vertically or boustrophedon. (3) The words are joined together and redivided. (4) The initials and final letters of several words are formed into separate words. (5) Every letter of a word is reduced to its numerical value, and the word is explained by another of the same quantity. (6) Every letter of a word is taken to be the initial or abbreviation of a word. (7) The twenty-two letters of the alphabet are divided into two halves; one half is placed above the other; and the two letters which thus become associated are interchanged. By this permutation, Aleph, the first letter of the alphabet, becomes Lamed, the twelfth letter; Beth becomes Mem, and so on. This cipher alphabet is called Albam, from the first interchangeable pairs. (8) The commutation of the twenty-two letters is effected by the last letter of the alphabet taking the place of the first, the last but one the place of the second, and so forth. This cipher is called Atbash. These hermeneutical canons are much older than the Kabbalah. They obtained in the synagogue from time immemorial, and were used by the Christian fathers in the interpretation of Scripture.[4] Thus Canon V., according to which a word is reduced to its numerical value and interpreted by another word of the same value, is recognized in the New Testament (cf. Rev. xiii. 18). Canon VI. is adopted by Irenaeus, who tells us that, according to the learned among the Hebrews, the name Jesus contains two letters and a half, and signifies that Lord who contains heaven and earth [ieshu = יהוה שמים וארץ] (Against Heresies, ii. xxiv., i. 205, ed. Clark). The cipher Atbash (Canon VIII.) is used in Jeremiah xxv. 26, li. 41, where Sheshach is written for Babel. In Jer. li. 1, לב קמי, Leb-Kamai (“the heart of them that rise up against me”), is written for כשדים, Chaldea, by the same rule.
Exegesis of this sort is not the characteristic of any single circle, people or century; unscientific methods of biblical interpretation have prevailed from Philo’s treatment of the Pentateuch to modern apologetic interpretations of Genesis, ch. i.[5] The Kabbalah itself is but an extreme and remarkable development of certain forms of thought which had never been absent from Judaism; it is bound up with earlier tendencies to mysticism, with man’s inherent striving to enter into communion with the Deity. To seek its sources would be futile. The Pythagorean theory of numbers, Neoplatonic ideas of emanation, the Logos, the personified Wisdom, Gnosticism—these and many other features combine to show the antiquity of tendencies which, clad in other shapes, are already found in the old pre-Christian Oriental religions.[6] In its more mature form the Kabbalah belongs to the period when medieval Christian mysticism was beginning to manifest itself (viz. in Eckhart, towards end of 13th century); it is an age which also produced the rationalism of Maimonides (q.v.). Although some of its foremost exponents were famous Talmudists, it was a protest against excessive intellectualism and Aristotelian scholasticism. It laid stress, not on external authority, as did the Jewish law, but on individual experience and inward meditation. “The mystics accorded the first place to prayer, which was considered as a mystical progress towards God, demanding a state of ecstasy.”[7] As a result, some of the finest specimens of Jewish devotional literature and some of the best types of Jewish individual character have been Kabbalist.[8] On the other hand, the Kabbalah has been condemned, and nowhere more strongly than among the Jews themselves. Jewish orthodoxy found itself attacked by the more revolutionary aspects of mysticism and its tendencies to alter established customs. While the medieval scholasticism denied the possibility of knowing anything unattainable by reason, the spirit of the Kabbalah held that the Deity could be realized, and it sought to bridge the gulf. Thus it encouraged an unrestrained emotionalism, rank superstition, an unhealthy asceticism, and the employment of artificial means to induce the ecstatic state. That this brought moral laxity was a stronger reason for condemning the Kabbalah, and the evil effects of nervous degeneration find a more recent illustration in the mysticism of the Chasidim (Ḥăsīdīm, “saints”), a Jewish sect in eastern Europe which started from a movement in the 18th century against the exaggerated casuistry of contemporary rabbis, and combined much that was spiritual and beautiful with extreme emotionalism and degradation.[9] The appearance of the Kabbalah and of other forms of mysticism in Judaism may seem contrary to ordinary and narrow conceptions of orthodox Jewish legalism. Its interest lies, not in its doctrines, which have often been absurdly over-estimated (particularly among Christians), but in its contribution to the study of human thought. It supplied a want which has always been felt by certain types, and it became a movement which had mischievous effects upon ill-balanced minds. As usual, the excessive self-introspection was not checked by a rational criticism; the individual was guided by his own reason, the limitations of which he did not realize; and in becoming a law unto himself he ignored the accumulated experiences of civilized humanity.[10]
A feature of greater interest is the extraordinary part which this theosophy played in the Christian Church, especially at the time of the Renaissance. We have already seen that the Sephiric decade or the archetypal man, like Christ, is considered to be of a double nature, both infinite and finite, perfect and imperfect. More distinct, however, is the doctrine of the Trinity. In Deut. vi. 43, where Yahweh occurs first, then Ĕlōhēnū, and then again Yahweh, we are told “The voice though one, consists of three elements, fire (i.e. warmth), air (i.e. breath), and water (i.e. humidity), yet all three are one in the mystery of the voice and can only be one. Thus also Yahweh, Ĕlōhēnū, Yahweh, constitute one—three forms which are one” (Zohar, ii. 43; compare iii. 65). Discussing the thrice holy in Isaiah vi. 3, one codex of the Zohar had the following remark: “The first holy denotes the Holy Father, the second the Holy Son, and the third the Holy Ghost” (cf. Galatinus, De arcanis cathol. lib. ii. c. 3, p. 31; Wolf, Bibliotheca hebraica, i. 1136). Still more distinct is the doctrine of the atonement. “The Messiah invokes all the sufferings, pain, and afflictions of Israel to come upon Him. Now if He did not remove them thus and take them upon Himself, no man could endure the sufferings of Israel, due as their punishment for transgressing the law; as it is written (Isa. liii. 4), Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows” (Zohar, ii. 12). These and similar statements favouring the doctrines of the New Testament made many Kabbalists of the highest position in the synagogue embrace the Christian faith and write elaborate books to win their Jewish brethren over to Christ. As early as 1450 a company of Jewish converts in Spain, at the head of which were Paul de Heredia, Vidal de Saragossa de Aragon, and Davila, published compilations of Kabbalistic treatises to prove from them the doctrines of Christianity. They were followed by Paul Rici, professor at Pavia, and physician to the emperor Maximilian I. Among the best-known non-Jewish exponents of the Kabbalah were the Italian count Pico di Mirandola (1463-1494), the renowned Johann Reuchlin (1455-1522), Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim (1487-1535), Theophrastus Paracelsus (1493-1541), and, later, the Englishman Robert Fludd (1574-1637). Prominent among the “nine hundred theses” which Mirandola had 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, was the following: “No science yields greater proof of the divinity of Christ than magic and the Kabbalah.” Mirandola so convinced Pope Sixtus of the paramount importance of the Kabbalah as an auxiliary to Christianity that his holiness exerted himself to have Kabbalistic writings translated into Latin for the use of divinity students. With equal zeal did Reuchlin act as the apostle of the Kabbalah. His treatises exercised an almost magic influence upon the greatest thinkers of the time. Pope Leo X. and the early Reformers were alike captivated by the charms of the Kabbalah as propounded by Reuchlin, and not only divines, but statesmen and warriors, began to study the Oriental languages in order to be able to fathom the mysteries of Jewish theosophy. The Zohar, that farrago of absurdity and spiritual devotion, was the weapon with which these Christians defended Jewish literature against hostile ecclesiastic bodies (Abrahams, Jew. Lit. p. 106). Thus the Kabbalah linked the old scholasticism with the new and independent inquiries in learning and philosophy after the Renaissance, and although it had evolved a remarkably bizarre conception of the universe, it partly anticipated, in its own way, the scientific study of natural philosophy.[11] Jewish theosophy, then, with its good and evil tendencies, and with its varied results, may thus claim to have played no unimportant part in the history of European scholarship and thought.
The main sources to be noticed are:—
1. The Sēpher Yĕsīrah, or “book of creation,” not the old Hilkoth Y. (“rules of creation”), which belongs to the Talmudic period (on which see Kohler, Jew. Ency. xii. 602 seq.), Main Sources. but a later treatise, a combination of medieval natural philosophy and mysticism. It has been variously ascribed to the patriarch Abraham and to the illustrious rabbi ‘Aqiba; its essential elements, however, maybe of the 3rd or 4th century A.D., and it is apparently earlier than the 9th (see L. Ginzberg, op. cit. 603 sqq.). It has “had a greater influence on the development of the Jewish mind than almost any other book after the completion of the Talmud” (ibid.).
2. The Bāhīr (“brilliant,” Job. xxxvii. 21), though ascribed to Neḥunyah b. Haqqanah (1st century A.D.), is first quoted by Naḥmanides, and is now attributed to his teacher Ezra or Azriel (1160-1238). It shows the influence of the Sēpher Yēṣīrah, is marked by the teaching of a celestial Trinity, is a rough outline of what the Zohar was destined to be, and gave the first opening to a thorough study of metaphysics among the Jews. (See further 1. Broydé, Jew. Ency. ii. 442 seq.).
3. The Zohar (“shining,” Dan. xii. 3) is a commentary on the Pentateuch, according to its division into fifty-two hebdomadal lessons. It begins with the exposition of Gen. i. 4 (“let there be light”) and includes eleven dissertations: (1) “Additions and Supplements”; (2) “The Mansions and Abodes,” describing the structure of paradise and hell; (3) “The Mysteries of the Pentateuch,” describing the evolution of the Sephiroth, &c.; (4) “The Hidden Interpretation,” deducing esoteric doctrine from the narratives in the Pentateuch; (5) “The Faithful Shepherd,” recording discussions between Moses the faithful shepherd, the prophet Elijah and R. Simon b. Yoḥai, the reputed compiler of the Zohar; (6) “The Secret of Secrets,” a treatise on physiognomy and psychology; (7) “The Aged,” i.e. the prophet Elijah, discoursing with R. Simon on the doctrine of transmigration as evolved from Exod. xxi. 1-xxiv. 18; (8) “The Book of Secrets,” discourses on cosmogony and demonology; (9) “The Great Assembly,” discourses of R. Simon to his numerous assembly of disciples on the form of the Deity and on pneumatology; (10) “The Young Man,” discourses by young men of superhuman origin on the mysteries of ablutions; and (11) “The Small Assembly,” containing the discourses on the Sephiroth which R. Simon delivered to the small congregation of six surviving disciples. The Zohar pretends to be a compilation made by Simon b. Yoḥai (the second century A.D.) of doctrines which God communicated to Adam in Paradise, and which have been received uninterruptedly from the mouths of the patriarchs and prophets. It was discovered, so the story went, in a cavern in Galilee where it had been hidden for a thousand years. Amongst the many facts, however, established by modern criticism which prove the Zohar to be a compilation of the 13th century, are the following: (1) the Zohar itself praises most fulsomely R. Simon, its reputed author, and exalts him above Moses; (2) it mystically explains the Hebrew vowel points, which did not obtain till 570; (3) the compiler borrows two verses from the celebrated hymn called “The Royal Diadem,” written by Ibn Gabirol, who was born about 1021; (4) it mentions the capture of Jerusalem by the crusaders and the re-taking of the Holy City by the Saracens; (5) it speaks of the comet which appeared at Rome, 15th July 1264, under the pontificate of Urban IV.; (6) by a slip the Zohar assigns a reason why its contents were not revealed before 5060-5066 A.M., i.e. 1300-1306 A.D., (7) the doctrine of the Ēn Sōph and the Sephiroth was not known before the 13th century; and (8) the very existence of the Zohar itself was not known prior to the 13th century. Hence it is now believed that Moses de Leon (d. 1305), who first circulated and sold the Zohar as the production of R. Simon, was himself the author or compiler. That eminent scholars both in the synagogue and in the church should have been induced to believe in its antiquity is owing to the fact that the Zohar embodies many older opinions and doctrines, and the undoubted antiquity of some of them has served as a lever in the minds of these scholars to raise the late speculations about the Ēn Sōph, the Sephiroth, &c., to the same age.
Literature.—The study of the whole subject being wrapped up with Gnosticism and Oriental theosophy, the related literature is immense. Among the more important works may be mentioned, Baron von Rosenroth’s Kabbala Denudata (Sulzbach, 1677-1678; Frankfort, 1684); A. Franck, La Kabbale (Paris, 2nd ed., 1889; German by Jellinek, Leipzig, 1844); C. D. Ginsburg, The Kabbalah, its Doctrines, Development and Literature (London, 1865); I. Meyer, Qabbalah (Philadelphia, 1888); Rubin, Kabbala und Agada (Vienna, 1895), Heidentum und Kabbalah (1893); Karppe, Ét. sur les origines du Zohar (Paris, 1891); A. E. Waite, Doctrine and Literature of the Kabbalah (London, 1902); Flügel, Philosophy, Kabbala, &c. (Baltimore, 1902); D. Neumark, Gesch. d. Jüd. Philosophie d. Mittelalters (Berlin, 1907); also S. A. Binion, in C. D. Warner’s World’s Best Literature, 8425 sqq. See further the very full articles in the Jewish Ency. by K. Kohler and L. Ginzberg (“Cabbala”), I. Broydé (“Bahir,” “Zohar”), with the references.
(C. D. G.; S. A. C.)