most fulsomely praises its own author, calls him the Sacred Light, and exalts him above Moses, "the faithful Shepherd" (Zohar III, 1326; 144a), while the disciples deify Rabbi Simon, before whom all men must appear (II, 38a).
2. The Zohar quotes and mystically explains the Hebrew vowel-points (I, \6b, 24b; II, 116a; III, 65a), which were introduced later.2
3. The Zohar (II, 32a) mentions the Crusades, the temporary taking of Jerusalem by the Crusaders from the Infidels, and the retaking of it by the Saracens.
4. The Zohar (III, 2126) records events which transpired A. D. 1264.
5. The doctrine of En-Soph and the Sephiroth, as well as the metempsychosian retribution, were not known before the thirteenth century.
6. The very existence of the Zohar, according to the stanch Cabalist Jehudah Chayoth (about 1500), was unknown to such distinguished Cabalists as Nachmanides and Ben-Adereth (12351310) ; the first who mentions it is Todros Abulafia (1234-1306).
7. Isaac of Akko (about 1290) affirms that "The Zohar was put into the world from the head of a Spaniard."
8. The Zohar contains passages which Moses de Leon translated into Aramaic from his works, e. g., the Sepher ha-Rlmmon, as Jellinek has demonstrated in his Moses de Leon und sein Verhaltniss sum Sohar," Leipsic, 1851, p. 21-36; (see also Graetz, Geschichte der Judcn, VII, 498; 2d ed., 1873, p. 477 et seq.).
These are some of the reasons why the Zohar is now regarded as a pseudograph of the thirteenth century, and that Moses de Leon should have palmed the Zohar upon Simon ben Jocha'i was nothing remarkable, since this rabbi is regarded by tradition as the embodiment of mysticism. There was also a financial reason, for from the Book Juchasin (pp. 88, 89, 95, ed. Filipowski, London, 1857) we learn that when his wife asked him why he published the production of his own intellect under another man's name, Moses de Leon replied "that if he were to publish it under his own name nobody would buy it, whereas under the name of Rabbi Simon ben Jochai it yielded him a large revenue."
With the appearance of the Zohar we find also a Zohar School, which is a combination and absorption of the different features and doctrines of all the former methods, without any plan or method; and we must not be surprised at the wild speculations which we so often find in the writings of the post-Zohar period. In Spain especially the study of the Zohar took deep root, and found its way to Italy, Palestine and Poland.
1 See my article s. v. in McClintock and Strong Professor Strack, who is entitled to a hearing in matters of Rabbinic literature, says: "He [Rabbi Simon] has long been regarded as the author of the Zohar; but this mam work of the Cabala was in reality composed in Spain by Moses ben Shem Tob de Leon in the second half of the thirteenth century, as has been proved especially by Jacob Emden, in Mitpahath Sepharim, Altona, 93 -Einleitung m dcn Talmud, 4th ed., Leipsic, 1908.
2 See my article "Vowel-Points" in McClintock and Strong.
CHAPTER IV.
THE CABALA IN THE POST-ZOHAR PERIOD.
Visionary Teachings.—The new text-book of religion which was introduced into Judaism by stealth, "placed the Kabbala, which a century before had been unknown, on the same level as the Bible and the Talmud, and to a certain extent on a still higher level. The Zohar undoubtedly produced good, in so far as it opposed enthusiasm to the legal dry-as-dust manner of the study of the Talmud, stimulated the imagination and the feelings, and cultivated a disposition that restrained the reasoning faculty. But the ills which it has brought on Judaism outweigh the good by far. The Zohar confirmed and propagated a gloomy superstition, and strengthened in people's minds the belief in the Kingdom of Satan, in evil spirits and ghosts. Through its constant use of coarse expression, often verging on the sensual, in contradistinction to the chaste, pure spirit pervading Jewish literature, the Zohar sowed the seeds of unclean desires, and later on produced a sect that laid aside all regard for decency. Finally, the Zohar blunted the sense for the simple and the true, and created a visionary world in which the souls of those who zealously occupied themselves with it were lulled into a sort of halfsleep and lost the faculty of distinguishing between right and wrong. Its quibbling interpretations of Holy Writ, adopted by the Kabbalists and others infected with this mannerism, perverted the verses and words of the Holy Book, and made the Bible the wrestling-ground of the most curious insane notions."
During the thirteenth century the Cabala was represented in Italy by Menahem di Recanati who wrote a commentary on the Pentateuch which is little else than a commentary on the Zohar. This work was translated into Latin by Pico della Mirandola.
At the beginning of the fourteenth century Joseph ben Abraham ibn Wakkar (1290-1340) endeavored to reconcile the Cabala with philosophy, and to this end wrote a treatise on the cardinal doctrines of the Cabala. An analysis of this treatise, which is still in manuscript in the Bodleian library (cod. Laud. 119; described by Uri No. 384) is given by Steinschneider in Ersch und Gruber's Allgemeine Encyclopadie, Part II, Vol. XXXI, p. 100 f.
During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the Cabala was especially cultivated in Spain. In unmeasured terms the Zoharites denounced their co-religionists who could not see the advantages of the Cabala. Prominent among the Zoharites was Abraham of Granada, who composed (between 1391 and 1409) a cabalistic work Berith menuchat, "The Covenant of Peace," (Amsterdam, 1648), a farrago of strange names of the Deity and the angels, of transposed letters, and jugglery with vowels and accents. "He had the hardihood," says Graetz, "to teach that those who could not apprehend God by Cabalistic methods belonged to the weak in faith, were ignorant sinners, and like the depraved and the apostate were overlooked by God, and not found worthy of His special providence. He thought that the relinquishment of their religion by cultured Jews was explained by their fatal application to scientific study, and their contempt for the Cabala. On the other hand he professed to see in the persecutions of 1391, and in the conversion of so many prominent Jews to Christianity, the tokens of the Messianic age, the suffering that must precede it, and the approach of the redemption." Another such writer was Shem Tob ben Joseph ibn Shem Tob (died 1430), author of Emunoth, i. e., "Faithfulness" (Ferrara, 1557), in which he attacks Jewish thinkers and philosophers as heretics, and maintains that the salvation of Israel depends upon the Cabala. The third writer was Moses Botarel (or Botarelo), also a Spaniard, who claimed to be a thaumaturge and prophet, and even announced himself as the Messiah. He prophesied that in the spring of 1393 the Messianic age would be ushered in. As the Cabala penetrated all branches of life and literature, voices were also raised against the Zohar. The first among the Jews who opposed its authority was Elias del Medigo, who in his Bechinath ha-daath (i. e., ''Examination of the Law," written in December, 1491) openly expressed his opinion that the Zohar was the production of a forger, and that the Cabala was made Up of the rags and tatters of the neo-Platonic school. But his voice and that of others had no power to check the rapid progress of the Cabala, which had now found its way from Spain and Italy into Palestine and Poland.
Wonder Workers and Prophets.—Passing over some minor advocates and teachers of the Cabala, we must mention two scholars in Palestine, who distinguished themselves as masters of the Cabala, Moses Cordovero1 and Isaac Luria. The former (1522-1570) was a pupil of Solomon Alkabez2 and wrote many works on the Cabala.
His principal work is the Pardes Rim-monim, i.e., "The Garden of Pomegranates." (Cracow, 1591), excerpts of which have been
