Comino, near Malta (about 1288), where he remained for some time, and wrote sundry Cabalistic works. Of his many works Jellinek published his Rejoinder to Solomon ben Adereth, who attacked his doctrines and pretensions as Messiah and prophet.
A disciple of Abulafia was Joseph Gikatilla of Medina-Celi, who died in Penjafiel after 1305. He, too, occupied himself with the mysticism of letters and numbers, and with the transposition of letters. His writings are in reality only an echo of Abulafia's fancies: the same delusion is apparent in both. Gikatilla's system is laid down in his Ginnath egos, i. e., "Garden of Nuts," published at Hanau, 1615; and Shaare ora, i. e., "the Gate of Light," first published at Mantua, 1561, in Cracow, 1600, and translated into Latin by Knorr von Rosenroth in the first part of his Kabbala Denudata, Sulzbach, 1677-78.
But far more influential and more pernicious than Allatif, Abulafia and Gikatilla was Moses de Leon (born in Leon about 1250, died in Arevalo, 1305), the author of a book which gave the Cabala a firm foundation and wide circulation,— in brief, raised it to the zenith of its power. This book is known by the name of Zohar or Splendor. At first he published his productions under his own name (about 1285). But as his writings were not sufficiently noticed, and brought him but little fame and money, he hit upon a much more effective means and commenced the composition of books under feigned but honored names. If he put the doctrines of the Cabala into the mouth of an older, highly venerated authority, he was sure to be successful in every respect. And he selected for this purpose the Tanaite Simon ben Jochai,21 who according to tradition spent thirteen years in a cave, solitary and buried in profound reflection, and whom ancient mysticism represented as receiving revelations from the prophet Elijah. Simon ben Jochai was assuredly the right authority for the Cabala. But he must not write or speak Hebrew, but Chaldee, a language peculiarly fit for secrets, and sounding as if from another world. And thus there came into the world a book, the "Zohar," which for many centuries was held by the Jews as a heavenly revelation, and was studied even by Christians.
1 Merkaba, i. e., "Chariot," mentioned in Ezek. i and x, which treat of the Divine Throne, resting on wheels, and carried by sacred animals. Great mysteries are attached by the ancient Jews to all details of this description of the Deity and his surroundings, which in imitation of Maascy Bereshit, i. e., "the work of the hexahemeron" or "cosmogony," is also called Maascy Merkaba, "the Work of the Chariot," a kind of "theosophv."
2 Rome. 1652, Vol. II, p. 225 f.
3 Vol. IV, pp. 27 f.
4 Also reprinted in Jellinek's Bet Ha-Midrash, Vol. II. pp. 114-117.
5 More, Nebuchim I. 61. Wiinsche thinks that the treatise De Judaicis siipcrstitionibiis by Agobard, bishop of Lyons (died 840), was directed against this mystic tendency.
6 L. Goldschmidt, Das Buck der Schopfang, Frankfurt a. M., 1894, p. 10, remarks: "I am inclined to put the time of the composition of the Book Jezirah into the second century B. C, and assert that it is the same book of the Creation which is mentioned in the Talmud." He is also inclined to make Palestine the place of its composition.
7 We may add the English translation of the book by Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, Vol. II (1883), pp. 690-695.
8 Comp. in general Beer, Leben Abraham's nach Auffassung der judlschen Sage, Leipsic, 1859; Grunbaum, N cue Beitrage zur semitischen Sagcnkunde; 1S93, pp. 89-132; Bonwetsch, Die Apokalypse Abrahams, 1897, pp. 41-55.
9 Ophanim, translated "wheels" in the English version (Ezek. i. 20), is taken by the Jewish Rabbis to denote "a distinct order of angels," just as Cherubim and Seraphim. Hence the Talmudic explanation of Exod. xx, 20, by "Thou shalt not make the likeness of those ministering servants who serve before me in heaven, viz.. Ophanim, Seraphim, sacred Chajoth and missive angels," (Rosh ha-Shana, fol. 24, clo. 2). Ophan, the prince of this order, is regarded by the ancient sages as identical with the angel Sandalphon, co-brother or fellowcompanion of the angel Metabron.
10 These three letters mean Jahu, or Yahveh, now pronounced Jehovah, of which they are the abbreviation; what follows shows how the permutation of these three letters marks the varied relationship of God to creation in time and space, and at the same time, so to speak, the immanence of His manifestation in it.
11 The word ruach means all these.
12 Azamoth.
13 These letters of the Hebrew Alphabet are called double because they have a double pronunciation, being sometimes aspirated and sometimes not, according to their being with or without the dagcsh (i. e., a point in the middle).
14 In order to ascertain how often a certain number of letters can be transposed, the product of the preceding number must be multiplied with it. thus:
Letter 2 x 1 = 2, 5 x 24 = 120
3 x 2 = 6, 6 x 120 = 720,
4 x 6 = 24, 7 x 720 = 5040 and so on.
15 En Soph, i. e., "Endless." "Boundless," is the name of the Deity given in the Zohar, where it is said of God (III, 283b) that he cannot be comprehended by the intellect, nor described in words, for there is nothing which can grasp and depict him to us, and as such he is, in a certain sense, not existent.
16 See above.
17 See my article s. v. "Nachmanides" in McClintock and Strong's Cyclop.
18 The angel who stands behind the throne of God.
19 This Synadelphon is no doubt the same as "Sandalphon," the theme of Longfellow's poem of that name, which commences thus:
"Have you read in the Talmud of old,
In the Legends the Rabbins have told
Of the limitless realms of the air,
Have you read it,--the marvelous story
Of Sandalphon, the Angel of Glory,
Sandalphon, the Angel of Prayer?"
In a note on page 668 (Boston and New York edition, 1893) it is stated that Longfellow marked certain passages in Stehelin's The Traditions of the Jews, which evidently furnished the material.
20 See my article s. v. "Abulafia" (he. cit., Vol. XI, p. 18) ; comp. also
