Cabala_Influence_on_Judaism&Christianity.pdf

The Cabala:

Its Influence on Judaism and Christianity

Bernhard Pick, Ph. D. D.D .

(The Open Court Publishing Company - 1913)

Part 1

Foreword

A lthough the Cabala belongs to the past, it nevertheless demands our attention on

account of the interest taken in it by men like Raymond Lully, the "Doctor Illuminatus"

as he was styled (died 1315); John Picus di Mirandola (1463-1494); John Reuchlin

(1455-1522); Cornelius Henry Agrippa von Nettesheim (1486-1535); John Baptist von

Helmont (1577-1644); the English scholars Robert Fludd (1574-1637) and Henry More

(1614-1687). How much Theophrastus Paracelsus (1493-1541) and Jacob Boehme (1575-

1624), called "Philosophus Teutonicus," were influenced by cabalistic doctrines, is

difficult to state. At any rate the names mentioned before are sufficient to call attention to

a theosophical system which has engaged the minds of Jewish and Christian scholars.

It is surprising how scanty the English literature is on the Cabala. True that in the

History of the Jews by Basnage, London, 1708, we have a lengthy account of this

theosophy (pp. 184-256); but this account is originally given in the French work Histoire

des Juifs , by the same author. John Gill (died 1771) in his " Dissertatio de genuina

Punctorum Vocalium Hebraicorum Antiquitate, contra cappellum, Waltonum," etc. ,

prefixed to his Clavis Pentateuchi , Edinburgh 1770, refers to the Zohar to prove the

antiquity of the Hebrew vowel-points, because it states that "the vowel-points proceeded

from the Holy Spirit who indited the Sacred Scriptures," etc. (on Song of Songs 57 b ; ed.

Amsterdam 1701). Of course so long as the Cabala was believed to be a genuine

revelation from God, and Simon ben Jochai (of the second century) was believed to be

the author of the Zohar, to whom God communicated all the mysteries, it was but a

matter of course to believe in the antiquity and divinity of the vowel-points.

John Allen (died 1839) in his Modern Judaism , London, 1816, (2d. ed. 1830) also

gives an account of the Cabala, in which he premises the antiquity of the Zohar, which he

makes the primary source of the primitive Cabala. Passing over Dean Milman's (died

1868) History of the Jews, London, 1829, (often reprinted), in which we naturally also

find references to the Cabala, we mention J.W. Etheridge (died 1866), author of

Jerusalem and Tiberius; Sora and Cordova, a Survey of the Religious and Scholastic

Learning of the Jews, Designed as an Introduction to Hebrew Literature , London, 1856.

This author seems to have been acquainted with the researches of the Jewish scholars in

Germany, but he nevertheless stoutly adheres to the traditional view. Thus he remarks on

page 314:

"To the authenticity of the Zohar, as a work of the early Kabalistic school, objections

have indeed been made, but they are not of sufficient gravity to merit an extended

investigation. The opinion that ascribes it as a pseudo-fabrication to Moses de Leon in the

thirteenth century, has, I imagine, but few believers among the learned in this subject in

our own day. The references to Shemun ben Yochai and the Kabala in the Talmud, and

abundant internal evidence found in the book itself, exhibit the strongest probability, not

that Shemun himself was the author of it, but that it is the fruit and result of his personal

instructions, and of the studies of his immediate disciples."

We may say that Etheridge's view is mutatis mutandis also that of Ad. Franck, author

of Système de la Kabbale ou la philosophie religieuse des Hebreux , Paris, 1843 (2d. Ed.

1892); translated into German by A. Gelinek (Jellinek), Die Kabbala oder die

Religionsphilosophie der Hebräer , Leipsig, 1844, with which must be compared D.H.

Joel, Die Religionsphilosophie des Sohar, ibid., 1840, which is an exceedingly good

supplement to Franck’s work. But an examination of the works published by Zunz, Die

gottesdienstlichen Vorträge der Juden, Berlin, 1831, p. 405; Gieger, Melo Chofnayim,

ibid., 1840, introduction, p. xvii; Sachs, Die religiöse Poesie der Juden in Spanien, ibid. ,

1845, p. 327; Jellinek, Moses Ben Schem Tob de Leon , Leipsig, 1851, could have

convinced Etheridge that the Zohar, the text-book of the Cabala, is the "pseudo-

fabrication" of Moses de Leon in the thirteenth century. That Landauer (died 1841) in his

essays on the Cabala published in the Litteraturblatt des Orients , 1845, p. 178 et seq.,

1846 p. 12 et seq., ascribes the authorship of the Zohar to Abraham ben Samuel Abulafia

towards the end of the second half of the thirteenth century, is the more weighty and

instructive because he originally started with opinions of an exactly opposite character

(Steinschneider, Jewish Literature , p. 299). Nevertheless Etheridge’s book was a good

work; it was the praiseworthy attempt of an English Christian to acquaint the English-

speaking people with the post-Biblical literature of the Jews.

Four years after the publication of the above work, Canon Westcott (died 1901)

published his Introduction to the Study of the Gospels, London, 1860, in which he

incidentally refers to the Cabala, without adopting Etheridge’s view as to the authorship

of the Zohar; on the contrary he says (p. 159, Boston, 1867): "The Sepher ha-Zohar, or

Book of Splendor, owes its existence to R. Moses of Leon in the thirteenth century," and

this, he says in a note, "has been satisfactorily established by Jellinek in his tract, Moses

ben Schemtob de Leon and sein Verhältniss zum Sohar , Leipsig, 1851. The warm

approval of Jost is sufficient to remove any lingering doubt as to the correctness of

Jellinek’s conclusion: A Jellinek und die Kabala, Leipsic, 1852."

The publication of Jellinek's Beiträge zur Geschichte der Kabbala , 2 parts, Leipsic,

1851; and his Auswahl kabbalistischer Mystic , part 1, ibid. , 1853; Stern’s "Versuch einer

umständlichen Analyse des Sohar" (in Ben Chananja, Monatsschrift für jüdische

Theologie , Vols. I-Iv, Szegedin, 1858-1861); Jost’s Geschichte des Judenthums und

seiner Sekten , Vol. III, pp. 66-81, 1859; more especially of Graetz's Geschichte der

Juden, Vol. VII, pp. 73-87, 442-459; 487-507, Leipsic 1863, paved the way for Christian

D. Ginsburg’s (now very scarce) essay The Kabbalah, London, 1865. As a matter of

course he adopts the results of modern scholarship and rejects the authorship of Simeon

ben Jochai.

As far as we are aware, nothing has been published in English since 1865. The

Kabbalah Unveiled by S.L.M.Mathers, London, 1887, gives only a translation of some

parts of the Zohar, which Knorr von Rosenroth had rendered into Latin. Nevertheless this

work is interesting, because an English reader - provided he has enough patience - can get

a taste of the zoharic wisdom and unwisdom.

I. NAME AND ORIGIN OF THE CABALA

The Cabala

B y Cabala we understand that system of religious philosophy, or more properly, of

Jewish theosophy, which played so important a part in the theological and exegetical

literature of both Jews and Christians ever since the Middle Ages.

The Hebrew word Cabala (from Kibbel) properly denotes "reception," then "a doctrine,

received by oral tradition." The term is thus in itself nearly equivalent to "transmission,"

like the Latin traditio , in Hebrew masorah , for which last, indeed, the Talmud makes it

interchangeable in the statement given in Pirke Abot I, 1: "Moses received ( kibbel ) the

Law on Mount Sinai, and transmitted ( umsarah ) it to Joshua." The difference, however,

between the word "Cabala" and the cognate term masorah is that the former expressed

"the act of receiving," while the latter denotes "the act of giving over, surrendering,

transmitting." The name, therefore, tells us no more than that this theosophy has been

received traditionally. In the oldest Jewish literature (Mishna, Midrash, Talmud), the

Cabala denotes the whole body of Jewish tradition. The name is even applied to the

prophetic writings of the Old Testament, and the Hagiographa, in contradistinction to the

Pentateuch. As a scientific system the Cabala is also called chokmat ha-cabalah , i.e.,

science of tradition, or chokmah nistarah (abbreviated ch'n , i.e. chen , Nx), i.e., secret

science or wisdom, and its representatives and adherents delighted in calling themselves

maskilim , i.e., "intelligent," or with a play of words yodé ch’n , i.e., "connoisseurs of

secret wisdom."

Having defused the term Cabala, which was still commonly used for "oral tradition" in

the 13th and 14th centuries even after the technical sense of the word was established, we

must be careful to distinguish between cabala and mysticism. Like other Eastern nations,

the Jews were naturally inclined to theosophical speculation and though this tendency

may have been repressed by the definite teaching of revelation as long as they were

confined within the sacred boundaries of Palestine, it found a freer scope after the Exile.

There were two subjects about which the Jewish imagination especially busied itself, -

the history of Creation, and the Merkabah , or the Divine apparition to Ezekiel. Both

touch the question of God's original connection with His creatures, and that of His

continued intercourse with them. They treat of the mystery of nature and of Providence,

especially of Revelation; and an attempt is made to answer the question, how the Infinite

God can have any connection or intercourse with finite creatures.

It is difficult to say how far it is possible to trace with certainty Jewish mysticism.

Even in the book of Sirach (Ecclus, xlix. 8) it is the special praise of Ezekiel that he saw

the chariot of the Cherubim. When we come to to the period of the Mishna, we find the

existence of a body of esoteric doctrine already presupposed. It is laid down that "no one

ought to discourse the history of Creation (Gen. i) with two, or the Chariot (Ezek. i) with

one, unless he be a scholar, who has knowledge of his own" (Chagiga II, 1).

Further allusions to these mysterious doctrines occur in the Talmud, but any rash

investigation of them was discouraged, as is shown by the story of the four sages in "the

enclosed garden," i.e., who were engaged in theosophical studies. One of them, it was

said, had looked around and died; another had looked around and lost his reason; a third

eventually tried to destroy the garden; 1 while the fourth alone had entered and returned in

safety (Chagiga, fol. 14, col. 2).

Origin of the Cabala

D eferring until later the works belonging to this period, we will now speak of the

origin of the Cabala. Although the name "Cabala" in its pregnant meaning is first used in

the 13th century, yet Jewish tradition claims a high antiquity for the Cabala and traces it

back, among others, to three famous Talmudists, as the proper founders of the Cabala,

viz., Rabbi Ishmaël ben Elisha (about 121 A.D.); Nechunjah Ben-Ha-Kanah (about 70

A.D.), and especially Simon ben Jochaï (about 150 A.D.), 2 the reputed author of the

Zohar.

Whatever may be the claims of these traditions they must be rejected. The mystical

speculations of the Cabala are entirely foreign to older Judaism, especially orginal

Mosaism. It is true that the Talmud contains many things concerning God, heaven, hell,

world, magic, etc., 3 but these things were generally assigned to some individuals, and are

elements derived from Parsism and neo-Platonism; and much as the Talmud and Midrash

may otherwise speak of the three teachers mentioned before, such things are not recorded

of them. The Cabala as a mystical system and its development as such undoubtedly

belongs to the Middle Ages, beginning probably with the seventh century of our era, and

culminating in the Book Zohar. A fuller and more mature development of the Cabala is

due to the speculations of later masters.

The origin of the Cabala belongs to that period in which Judaism on the one hand was

permeated by a crude anthropomorphic notion of the Deity, whereas on the other hand

Platonism and Aristotelianism strove for the ascendency in formulating the fundamental

doctrines of Jewish belief. With Moses Maimonides (1135-1204) rationalism had reached

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