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. When they tell the Messiah of the afflictions of Israel in exile, and that the sinners among them do not reflect in order to know their Lord, he raises his voice and weeps because of those sinners, as it is written, 'he is wounded for our transgressions' (Is. liii. 5). Whereupon those souls return and take their place. In the garden of Eden there is one place which is called the palace of the sick. The Messiah goes into this palace and invokes all the sufferings, pain and afflictions of Israel to come upon him, and they all 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 punishment for transgressing the Law; as it is written—'Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows,' etc. (Is. liii, 4 with Rom. xii. 3, 4). When the children of Israel were in the Holy Land they removed all those sufferings and afflictions from the world by their prayers and sacrifices, but now the Messiah removes them from the world." (Zohar, II, 212b). With reference to these passages13 which speak of the atonement of the Messiah for the sins of the people, which are given in the Zohar as the explanation of the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, Professor Dalman14 remarks that the Jews reject and object to cabalistic statements as something foreign to genuine Judaism.
The theosophic speculations of the Cabala are at least just as Jewish as the religious philosophical statements of Bachja or Maimonides; yes, it seems to us that the God of revelation and of scripture is more honestly retained in the former than in the latter, where he becomes a mathematical One without attribute and thereby may satisfy a superficial reason, but leaves the heart empty. That these Jewish thinkers, influenced by Aristotle, had no inclination to find in Is. liii an expiating mediator, is only too inexplicable. He, who by his own strength can soar into the sphere of "intelligences" and thus bring his soul to immortality, needs no mediator. But we are concerned here not with a philosophical or theosophical thought-complex, but the simple question whether the prophet speaks in Is. liii of a suffering mediator of salvation. The answer of the Cabalists at any rate agrees with the testimony of many of them.
What are we to think of the Cabala? That there is a relationship between it and neo-Platonism is obvious. Erich Bischoff15 thinks that the Cabala represents a peculiar monism, which in some degree has influenced modern philosophy. In ethical respects it contains many fruitful and sublime thoughts, often indeed in fanciful wording. But as magic it has been of great influence on all kinds of superstitions and even on occultistic tendencies. It offers a highly interesting object of study whose closer investigation is rendered more difficult on account of the abtruse manner of representation and the many magic and mystic accessories. But that which is valuable is sufficient to insure for it a lasting interest.
1 A collection of passages abusing the Talmud is given by Landauer in the Orient, 1845, pp. 571-574; see also Rubin, Heidenthum und Kabbah, Vienna, 1893, pp. 13 f.; also his Kabbala und Agada, ibid., 1895, p. 5, where we read that according to Abulafia the Cabalists only were genuine men, and the Talmudists monkeys.
