KABBALAH - Selected Writings. Bernhard Pick

to the dissemination of literary progress in Galicia and Russia. There are still thousands who behold in the Tsaddik the worker of miracles, the prophet, one who is in close communion with God and angels, and who present him with rich gifts and promulgate the wonders which they have seen. Covetousness on the one hand and spiritual narrowness on the other are the channels through which the evil is fed anew."

      Christianity.—As soon as the Cabala became better known, Christians betook themselves to its study and paid it the greatest attention because of the supposed agreement of its teachings with the dogmas of the Christian church. It was thought that the Cabala was the connecting link between Judaism and Christianity. The dogmas of the Trinity, of the Messiah as the Son of God and his atonement, were the salient points which especially attracted attention. The first to be drawn to the Cabala was Raymond Lully, the "Doctor Illuminatus" (1236-1315). He regarded the Cabala as a divine science and as a genuine revelation whose light is revealed to a rational soul.

The progress of Christianity towards the Cabala was greatly helped by the conversion of a large number of Jews to Christianity, "in which they recognized a closer relation to their gnostic views, and also by the Christians perceiving that gnosticism could become a powerful instrument for the conversion of the Jews." Among the converted Jews we notice Paulus de Heredia of Aragon (about 1480), author of Iggcret ha-So~ dot or Epistola Sccretorum, treating of the divinity, death, and resurrection of the Messiah, which has been ascribed to a certain Nechunjah ben-ha-Kanah, who lived towards the end of the second Temple. Another convert was Paul Ricci,7 of the sixteenth century, the friend of Erasmus, and physician to the Emperor Maximilian I; Julius Conrad Otto, author of the "Unveiled Secrets," consisting of extracts from the Talmud and the Zohar, to prove the validity of the Christian doctrine (Nuremberg, 1805) ; John Stephen Rittengel, grandson of the celebrated Isaac Abravanel, the translator of the Book Jezirah into Latin (Amsterdam, 1642). Among Christians we may mention Count John Pico di Mirandola (born in 1463), author of LXXII conclusiones cabbalisticae, Rome, 1486; more especially John Reuchlin (Capnio), 1455-1522. Reuchlin, the first German scholar who studied the Cabala, wrote two cabalistic treaties, entitled De Verbo Mirifico (Basel, 1494), and De Arte cabbalistica (Hagenau, 1516).8

      The first treatise is written in the form of a dialogue between an Epicurean philosopher named Sidonius, a Jew named Baruch, and the author, who is introduced by the Greek name Capnio. Capnio would have it that the doctrine of the Trinity is to be found in the first verse of Genesis. He submits, if the Hebrew word bra (bara), which is translated "created," be examined, and if each of the three letters composing this word be taken as the initial of a separate word, we obtain the expression ben, ruach, ab, i. e., Son, Spirit, Father. Upon the same principle we find the two persons of the Trinity in the word abn (eben), "stone," occurring in Ps. cxviiL 22—"the stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner," by dividing the three letters composing the word abn into ab ben> i. e., Father, Son.

      The second treatise is also in the form of a dialogue between a Mohammedan, a Pythagorean philosopher and a Jew. The dialogue is held at Frankfort where the Jew lives to whom the others come to be initiated into the mysteries of the Cabala. The whole is a more matured exposition and elaboration of the ideas hinted at in the first treatise.

      How the truths of Christianity can be derived from the Talmud and the Cabala, the Franciscan Pietro Galatino endeavored to prove in his treatise De Arcanis Catholicae Veritatis contra obstinatissimam Judaecorum nostrae tempestatis perfidiam (Ortona di Mare, 1518).

Much as Lully, Mirandola, Reuchlin, and others had already done to acquaint the Christian world with the secrets of the Cabala, none of these scholars had given translations of any portions of the Zohar. To this task Knorr Baron von Rosenroth betook himself by publishing the celebrated work Kabbala Demidata ("the Cabala Unveiled"), in two large volumes, the first of which was printed in Sulzbach, 1677-78, the second at Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1864, giving a Latin translation of the Introduction to and the following portion of the Sohar: the Book of Mysteries; the Great Assembly; the Small Assembly ;9 Joseph Gikatilla's Gate of Light (shaar orah) ; Vital's Doctrine of Metempsychosis (hagilgidim), and the Tree of Life {etz chayim) ; Cordovero's Garden of Pomegranates (pardes rim-monim); Abraham Herera's Gate of Heaven (sha-ar ha shamayim) ; Naphtali ben Jacob's Valley of the King (emeq ha bacha); Naphtali Cohen's Vision of the Priest {mare Kohen) etc., etc., with elaborate annotations, glossaries and indices. Knorr von Rosenroth has also collected all the passages of the New Testament which contain similar doctrines to those propounded by the Cabala. In spite of its many drawbacks10 the work has been made use of by later scholars, especially by Chr. Schottgen in his Horae hebraicae et talmudicae (Dresden, 1733) and Theologia Judacorum de Messia (ibid., 1742.)

The powerful preponderance of the religious and ecclesiastical interests, as well as those of practical politics which became perceptible in the first quarter of the sixteenth century, giving to the mind a positive impulse, and to the studies a substantial foundation, arrested the further development of the Cabala; and thus it came about that in the course of time the zeal for cabalistic studies among Christians has cooled. It has become generally understood that the Cabala and Christianity are two different things. The idea of God according to the writings of the Old and New Testaments is entirely different. The same is the case with the notion of creation. When the first triad of the Sephiroth (Crown, Wisdom and Intelligence) is referred to the three persons of the Deity, their inner immanent relation is not thereby fully expressed, as Christianity teaches it. The three Sephiroth only represent three potencies of God or three forms of his emanation, the other Sephiroth are also such divine powers and forms. One can therefore rightly say that the Cabala teaches not the Trinity, but the Ten-Unity of God. Also the other characteristics, when e. g. the Zohar ascribes to God three heads; or when it speaks of a GodFather (abba) of a God-Mother (imma) and of a God-Son; or when we are told (Zohar, III, 262a; comp. 67a) that "there are two, and one is connected with them, and they are three; but in being three, they are one," this does not coincide in the least with the Christian doctrine of the Trinity.11

In one codex of the Zohar we read on the words "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts" (Is. vi. 3) : "the first 'holy' refers to the Holy Father; the second to the Holy Son; and the third to the Holy Ghost"; but this passage is now omitted from the present recensions of the Zohar, and has been regarded by some Jewish writers as an interpolation.12

      As to the doctrine of Christ, the God incarnate —it cannot be paralleled with the confused doctrine of Adam Kadmon, the primordial man. According to the Christian notion the reconciliation is effected only through Christ, the Son of God; according to the Cabala man can redeem himself by means of a strict observance of the law, by asceticism and other means whereby he influences God and the world of light in a mystical manner. For the benefit of the reader we give the following passages which speak of the atonement of the Messiah for the sins of people, passages which are given as the explanation of the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. "When the righteous are visited with sufferings, and afflictions to atone for the sins of the world,* is that they might atone for all the sins of this generation. How is this proved ? By all the members of the body. When all members suffer, one member is afflicted in order that all may recover. And which of them ? The arm. The arm is beaten, the blood is taken from it, and then the recovery of all the members of the body is secured. So it is with the children of the world; they are members of one another. When the Holy One, blessed be he, wishes the recovery of the world, he afflicts one righteous from their midst, and for his sake all are healed. How is this shown? It is written—'He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities. . . .and with his stripes we are healed' (Is. iii. 5)." Zohar, III, 218a.

To the same effect is the following passage: "Those souls which tarry in the nether garden of Eden hover about the world, and when they see suffering or patient martyrs and those who suffer for the unity of God, they return and mention it to the Messiah.