to go into another where I shall be a bondmaid, and be exposed to all kinds of pollutions." Llere, too, we notice again the influence of Platonic and Philonian doctrines. In its original state each soul is androgynous, and is separated into male and female when it descends on earth to be born in a human body. At the time of marriage both parts are united again as they were before, and again constitute one soul (Zohar, I, 9lb). This doctrine reminds us of Plato and Philo no less than that other (viz. of <W/xi'?7<m) that the soul carries her knowledge with her to the earth, so that "every thing which she learns here below she knew already, before she entered into this world" (Zohar, III, 61b), Of great interest is the metempsychosis of the Cabala. How this doctrine, already espoused by the Egyptians, Pythagoreans and Plato, came into Jewish mysticism, is not yet fully explained.10 But it is interesting to learn of the destiny of man and the universe according to the Cabalists.
It is an absolute condition of the soul to return to the Infinite Source from which it emanated, after developing on earth the perfections, the germs of which are implanted in it. If the soul, after assuming a human body, fails during its first sojourn on earth to acquire that experience for which it descends from heaven, and becomes contaminated by sin, it must re-inhabit a body again and again, till it is able to ascend in a purified state. This transmigration or gilgul, however, is restricted to three times. "And if two souls in their third residence in human bodies are still too weak to resist all earthly trammels and to acquire the necessary experience, they are both united and sent into one body, so that they may be able conjointly to learn that which they were too feeble to do separately. It sometimes happens,, however, that it is the singleness and isolation of the soul which is the source of the weakness, and it requires help to pass through its probation. In that case it chooses for a companion a soul which has more strength and better fortune. The stronger of the two then becomes as it were the mother; she carries the sickly one in her bosom, and nurses her from her own substance, just as a woman nurses her child. Such an association is therefore called pregnancy (ibbur), because the stronger soul gives as it were life and substance to the weaker companion."
This doctrine of the Superfoetatio was especially taught by Isaac Loria or Luria. It is obvious that this doctrine of the Ibbur naturally led to wild superstition and fraudulent thaumaturgy. Loria himself claimed to have the soul of the Messiah ben Joseph. Connected with Loria's system is the doctrine of the Kawana, by which is meant the absorbed state of the soul in its direction towards God when performing the ceremonies, in prayer, self-mortification, in the pronunciation of the divine name and reading of the Zohar, whereby the bounds are broken and the fulness of blessing from the upper world is brought down upon the lower.
The world, being an expansion of the Deity's own substance, must also share ultimately that blessedness which it enjoyed in its first evolution. Even Satan himself, the archangel of wickedness, will be restored to his angelic nature, since he, too, proceeded from the Infinite Source of all things. When the last human soul has passed through probation, then the Messiah will appear and the great jubilee year will commence, when the whole pleroma of souls (otzar ha-neshamoth), cleansed and purified shall return to the bosom of the Infinite Source and rest in the "Palace of Love" (Zohar, II, 97a).
Mystic Interpretation.—The exegetical ingenuity of the Cabala is interesting to the theologian. The principle of the mystic interpretation is universal and not peculiar to one or another school, as every one will perceive in ecclesiastical history, and even in the history of Greek literature. We find it in Philo, in the New Testament, in the writings of the fathers, in the Talmud, and in the Zohar; and the more such an interpretation departed from the spirit of the sacred text, the more necessary was it to bring the scriptures to its support by distortions of their meanings.11
Passing over all manner of subtleties of the pre-Zoharic times, we will consider the masterly performances of the Cabalists. According to them the letters, words and names of the scriptures contain divine mysteries of wondrous, mystical thoughts and ideas, of significant symbols and riddles, on which depends the continuance of the world. (Zohar, II, 99a). "Is it conceivable," the Zohar makes one of Simon ben Jochai's circle exclaim, "that God had no holier matters to communicate than these common things about Esau and Hagar, Laban and Jacob, Balaam's ass, Balak's jealousy of Israel, and Zimri's lewdness? Does a collection of such tales, taken in their ordinary sense, deserve the name of Torah? And can it be said of such a revelation that it utters the pure truth? If that is all the Torah contains, we can produce in our time a book as good as this, aye, perhaps better. No, no! the higher, mystical sense of the Torah is its true sense. The biblical narratives resemble a beautiful dress which enraptures fools so that they do not look beneath it. This robe, however, covers a body, i. e., the precepts of the Law, and this again a soul, the higher soul. Woe to the guilty, who assert that the Torah contains only simple stories, and therefore look only upon the dress. Blessed are the righteous, who seek the real sense of the Law. The jar is not the wine, so stories do not make up the Torah" (ibid., Ill, 152a). Thus the Cabalists attached little importance to the literal sense; yet not a single iota was to be taken from it and nothing was to be added to it (ibid.j II, 99).
In order to elicit the mysteries from the scriptures, the Cabalists employed certain hermeneutical canons,12 viz.:
1. Gematria,13 i. e., the art of discovering the hidden sense of the text by means of the numerical equivalents of the letters. Thus from the Hebrew words והבה שלשה (vehineh sheloshah) translated "lo! three (men stood by him)" in Gen. xviii, 2, it is deduced that these three were the angels Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, because the letters yield the numerical value of 701, viz,
ו = 6 + ה = 5 + נ = 50 + ה = 5 + ש = 300 + ל = 30 + ש = 300 + ה = 5 = 701; and the same number yields the words אלו מיכאל גכריאל ורפאל, viz. = א = 1 + ל = 30 + ו = 6 + מ = 40 + י = 10 + כ = 20 + א = 1 + ל = 30 + ג = 3 + כ = 2 + ר = 200 + י = 10 + א = 1 + ל = 30 + ו = 6 + ר = 200 + פ = 80 + א = 1 + ל = 30 =701.
A like figuring we find in the Epistle of Barnabas, ch, ix, with reference to the 318 servants of Abraham, mentioned in Gen. xiv. 14. The author lays stress upon the fact that in the Hebrew the "eighteen" are mentioned first, and the "three hundred" afterwards. In the eighteen expressed by the Greek letters I = 10 and H = 8 he sees Jesus (ΙΗΣΟΥΣ), and in the three hundred he sees by the letter T — 300, the cross.
With this canon may be compared the "number-oracle," by means of which one can tell from the number of the letters of the name and the dates of the birth important years and days in the life of a man. Thus, for instance, Emperor William I, was born March 22, 1797; 3 + 22 + 1797 + 7 (number of the letters of the name= 1829, the year of marriage; 1829 +1+8 + 2 + 9 = 1849, campaign to Baden; 1849 + 1 + 8 + 4 + 9= 1871, coronation as emperor; 1871 + 1 +8 + 7 + 1 = 1888, year of death. Napoleon III, born 4, 20, 1808; 4 + 20+1808 + 8 (number of the letters of the name) = 1840, the coup at Boulogne; 1840+1+8 + 4 + 0= 1853, first year as emperor; 1853 + 1+8 + 5 + 3 = 1870; end of his rule.14
2. Notarikon (from the Latin notarius, a short-hand writer, one who among the Romans belonged to that class of writers who abbreviated and used single letters to signify whole words), is employed when every letter of a word is taken as an initial or abbreviation of a wrord. Thus, for instance, every letter of the Hebrew first word in Genesis,15 is made the initial of a word, and from "in the beginning" we obtain "in the beginning God saw that Israel should accept the law"; or the word "Adam" (ADM) is made "Adam, David, Messiah." Sometimes very curious and ingenious combinations are derived from this system. For
