| CHAPTER VI THE CABALA IN RELATION TO JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY |
Judaism.--It must be acknowledged that the Cabala intended to oppose philosophy and to intensify religion. But by
introducing heathenish ideas it grafted on Judaism a conception of the world which was foreign to it and produced the
most pernicious results. In place of the monotheistic biblical idea of God, according to which God is the creator,
preserver and ruler of the world, the confused, pantheistically colored heathenish doctrine of emanation was
substituted. The belief in the unity of God was replaced by the decade of the ten Sephiroth which were considered as
divine substances. By no longer addressing prayers directly to god, but to the Sephiroth, a real Sephiroth-cult
originated. The legal discussions of the Talmud were of no account; the Cabalists despised the Talmud, yea, they
considered it as a canker of Judaism, which must be cut out if Judaism were to recover. According to the Zohar, I, 27b;
III, 275a; 279b, the Talmud is only a bondmaid, but the Cabala a controlling mistress.
The Cabalists compared the Talmud to a hard, unfruitful rock, which when smitten yields only scanty drops that in the
end become a cause of controversy; whereas the study of the Cabala is like a fresh gushing spring, which one needs
only to address to cause it to pour out its refreshing contents*.
*A collection of passages abusing the Talmud is given by Landauer in the Orient, 1845, pp. 571-574; see also Rubin,
Heidenthum und Kabbala, Vienna, 1893, pp. 13 f.; also his Kabbala and Agada, ibid., 1895, p. S, where we read that
according to Abulafia the Cabalists only were genuine men, and the Talmudists monkeys.
And as the Cabalists treated the Talmud, they likewise treated philosophy, which defined religious ideas and
vindicated religious precepts before the forum of reason. Most Cabalists opposed philosophy. She was the Hagar that
must be driven from the house of Abraham, whereas the Cabala was the Sarah, the real mistress. At the time of the
Messiah the mistress will rule over the bondmaid.
But the study of the Bible was also neglected, Scripture was no longer studied for its own sake, but for the sake of
finding the so-called higher sense by means of mystical hermeneutical rules.
Even the rituals were variously changed and recast. The putting on of the phylacteries and prayer-mantle (talîth) was
accompanied by the recitation of cabalistic formulas and sentences; special prayers were also addressed to the
Sephiroth. Connected with all this was an extravagant, intoxicating superstition. To enable the soul to connect itself
with the realm of light and its spirits, or to be transplanted after death into its heavenly abode, one underwent all
manner of austere ascetical exercises. With the mysterious name of God they believed themselves enabled to heal
the sick, to deliver demoniacs and to extinguish conflagrations. By application of the right formulas of prayer, man was
to have power and influence on both the kingdoms of light and darkness. When the Cabalist prays, God shakes his
head, changes at once his decrees, and abolishes heavy judgments. The magical names of God can even deliver the
condemned and free them from their torments in their place of punishment. In this respect we even meet with the
doctrine of the Catholic mass for the souls*. The Book of Psalms with its songs and prayers was especially considered
as a means of producing all manner of miracles and magic, as may be seen from the Sepher Shimmush Thehillim
(literally, "the Book of the Cabalistic Application of the Psalms"), a fragment of the practical Cabala, translated by
Gottfried Selig, Berlin, 1788.
*Wünsche, whom we have followed, evidently refers to the prayer called Kaddish, for which see my article s.v. in
McClintock and Strong, vol. XII. A very interesting article on "Jüdische Seelenmesse and Totenanrufung" is given by
Dalman in Saat auf Hoffnung (Leipsic, 1890), pp. 169-225.
This sketch of Professor Wünsche is by no means exaggerated*. Mutatis mutandis we find the cabalistic notions
among the Chasidim, a sect founded in 1740 by a certain Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer Baalshem**, also called Besht. Baal-
Shem made his public appearance about 1740 in Tlusti, in the district of Czartkow, from whence he subsequently
removed to Medziboze, in Podolia. The miraculous cures and prophecies attracted attention in large circles; his mode
of life, consisting of contemplation, study of the Zohar and frequent washings in rivers, soon spread a halo around
him. Added to this were the many miraculous reports circulated by his disciples; for instance, that his father had been
visited by the prophet Elijah to predict his birth, and that his mother was a hundred years old when she was delivered
of him; that, when a youth, he had victoriously struggled with evil spirits, etc.--all of which may be found in the Book
Shibche ha-Besht, published in 1815 by the grandson of Baal-Shem, Rabbi Bar Linz. Baal-Shem*** and his
successors received the name Tsaddik, "Saint," and his fame attracted multitudes of Jews from all parts of Poland,
who submitted themselves to his guidance. As long as he lived, the sect formed one great whole, of which he was the
head. After his death, which took place in 1780, it was divided into separate congregations, each of which had its own
Rabbi or Tsaddik or Saint, unreserved devotion to whom is the most important of all the principles of the sect. In a
word, before Pius IX was declared infallible, the Chasidi**** already had their infallible popes, whose number is still
very large in Poland, Wallachia, Moldavia, Galicia, and Palestine. Of these popes of the Chasidim, a modern Jewish
writer, the late David Cassel (died 1893), says: "To the disgrace of Judaism and modern culture the Tsaddikim still go
on with their disgraceful business, and are thus the most essential hindrances to the dissemination of literary progress
in Galicia and Russia. There are still thousands who behold in the Tsaddik the worker of miracles, the prophet, one
who is in close communion with God and angels, and who present him with rich gifts and promulgate the wonders
which they have seen. Covetousness on the one hand and spiritual narrowness on the other are the channels
through which the evil is fed anew."
*Orelli in his article "Zauberei" in Realencyklopädie für protest. Theologie and Kirche, vol. XXI, 1908, p. 618, remarks:
"The Jewish Cabala has promoted the magic degeneration of the religion; to a great extent it furnished profound
expressions and formulas for the exercise of superstitious arts."
** "Lord of the name" = θεοῦργος, a man who by words of conjuration and other formulas knows how to exercise a
power over the visible and invisible world.
***Compare Kahana, Rabbi Israel Baal Schem-Tob, sein Leben, kabbalistisches System and Wirken, Sitomir, 1900.
****Compare Perl, Megalleh temirin, or Die enthüllten Geheimnisse der Chassidim, Lemberg, 1879; Ch. Bogratschoff,
Entstehung, Entwicklung and Prinzipien des Chassidismus, Berlin, 1908.
Christianity.--As soon as the Cabala became better known, Christians betook themselves to its study and paid it the
greatest attention because of the supposed agreement of its teachings with the dogmas of the Christian church. It was
thought that the Cabala was the connecting link between Judaism and Christianity. The dogmas of the Trinity, of the
Messiah as the Son of God and his atonement, were the salient points which especially attracted attention. The first to
be drawn to the Cabala was Raymond Lully, the "Doctor Illuminatus" (1236-1315). He regarded the Cabala as a divine
science and as a genuine revelation whose light is revealed to a rational soul.
The progress of Christianity towards the Cabala was greatly helped by the conversion of a large number of Jews to
Christianity, "in which they recognized a closer relation to their gnostic views, and also by the Christians perceiving
that gnosticism could become a powerful instrument for the conversion of the Jews." Among the converted Jews we
notice Paulus de Heredia of Aragon (about 1480), author of Iggeret ha-Sodot or Epistola Secretorum, treating of the
divinity, death, and resurrection of the Messiah, which has been ascribed to a certain Nechunjah ben-ha-Kanah, who
lived towards the end of the second Temple. Another convert was Paul Ricci*, of the sixteenth century, the friend of
Erasmus, and physician to the Emperor Maximilian I; Julius Conrad Otto, author of the "Unveiled Secrets," consisting
of extracts from the Talmud and the Zohar, to prove the validity of the Christian doctrine (Nuremberg, 1805); John
Stephen Rittengel, grandson of the celebrated Isaac Abravanel, the translator of the Book Jezirah into Latin
(Amsterdam, 1642). Among Christians we may mention Count John Pico di Mirandola (born in 1463), author of LXXII
conclusiones cabbalisticae, Rome, 1486; more especially John Reuchlin (Capnio), 1455-1522. Reuchlin, the first
German scholar who studied the Cabala, wrote two cabalistic treaties, entitled De Verbo Mirifico (Basel, 1494), and De
Arte cabbalistica (Hagenau, 1516)**.
*See my article s.v. in McClintock and Strong.
**These and some other treatises of the same kind are collected by Pistorius in a collection entitled Artis cabbalisticae
scriptores, Basel, 1587.
The first treatise is written in the form of a dialogue between an Epicurean philosopher named Sidonius, a Jew named
Baruch, and the author, who is introduced by the Greek name Capnio. Capnio would have it that the doctrine of the
Trinity is to be found in the first verse of Genesis. He submits, if the Hebrew word bra (bara), which is translated
"created," be examined, and if each of the three letters composing this word be taken as the initial of a separate word,
we obtain the expression ben, ruach, ab, i.e., Son, Spirit, Father. Upon the same principle we find the two persons of
the Trinity in the word abn (eben), "stone," occurring in Ps. cxviii. 22--"the stone which the builders rejected is become
the head of the corner," by dividing the three letters composing the word abn into ab ben, i.e., Father, Son.
The second treatise is also in the form of a dialogue between a Mohammedan, a Pythagorean philosopher and a Jew.
The dialogue is held at Frankfort where the Jew lives to whom the others come to be initiated into the 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 Denudata ("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*; Joseph Gikatilla's Gate of Light (shaar orah); Vital's Doctrine of Metempsychosis
(hagilgulim), 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 (maré 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 drawbacks** the work has been made use of by later scholars,
especially by Chr. Schöttgen in his Horae hebraicae et talmudicae (Dresden, 1733) and Theologia Judacorum de
Messia (ibid., 1742.)
*These three parts are Englished by Mathers.
**Buddeus in Introductio in Historiam Philosophiae p. 104 Hebraeorum (Halle 1702) calls Knorr von Rosenroth's work
"confusum et obscurum opus, in quo necessaria cum non necessariis utilia cum inutilibus, confusa sunt, et in unam
velut chaos conjecta." Knorr von Rosenroth has also written a number of hymns.
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 God-Father (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*.
*Compare also Bischoff, Die Kabbalah, p. 26.
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*.
*Compare Joel, Die Religionsphilosophie des Sohar, Leipsic, 1849, pp. 240 ff.--The Zoharic passages referring to the
Trinity are given in the original with a German translation in Auszüge aus dem Buche Sohar (by Tholuck; revised by
Biesenthal), Berlin, 1857; 4th ed., 1876; also by Pauli, The Great Mystery; or How Can Three Be One, London, 1863.
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 passages* 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 Dalman** 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. Theanswer of the
Cabalists at any rate agrees with the testimony of many of them.
*A collection of the passages referring to the atoning work of the Messiah is given in Auszüge aus dem p. 108 Buche
Sohar, pp. 35 f., more especially in Wünsche, Die Leiden des Messias, Leipsic, 1870, pp. 95-105; and by Dalman,
"Das Kommen des Messias nach dem Sohar" (in Saat auf Hoffnung), Leipsic, 1888, pp. 148-160.
**In his Jesaja 53, das Prophetenwort von Sühnleiden des Heilandes mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der
synagogalen Literatur, Leipsic, 1890.
What are we to think of the Cabala? That there is a relationship between it and neo-Platonism is obvious. Erich
Bischoff* 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 abstruse manner of
representation and the many magic and mystic accessories. But that which is valuable is sufficient to insure for it a
lasting interest.
*The author of Die Kabbalah. Einführung in die jüdische Mystik and Geheimwissenschaft, Leipsic, 1903.
introducing heathenish ideas it grafted on Judaism a conception of the world which was foreign to it and produced the
most pernicious results. In place of the monotheistic biblical idea of God, according to which God is the creator,
preserver and ruler of the world, the confused, pantheistically colored heathenish doctrine of emanation was
substituted. The belief in the unity of God was replaced by the decade of the ten Sephiroth which were considered as
divine substances. By no longer addressing prayers directly to god, but to the Sephiroth, a real Sephiroth-cult
originated. The legal discussions of the Talmud were of no account; the Cabalists despised the Talmud, yea, they
considered it as a canker of Judaism, which must be cut out if Judaism were to recover. According to the Zohar, I, 27b;
III, 275a; 279b, the Talmud is only a bondmaid, but the Cabala a controlling mistress.
The Cabalists compared the Talmud to a hard, unfruitful rock, which when smitten yields only scanty drops that in the
end become a cause of controversy; whereas the study of the Cabala is like a fresh gushing spring, which one needs
only to address to cause it to pour out its refreshing contents*.
*A collection of passages abusing the Talmud is given by Landauer in the Orient, 1845, pp. 571-574; see also Rubin,
Heidenthum und Kabbala, Vienna, 1893, pp. 13 f.; also his Kabbala and Agada, ibid., 1895, p. S, where we read that
according to Abulafia the Cabalists only were genuine men, and the Talmudists monkeys.
And as the Cabalists treated the Talmud, they likewise treated philosophy, which defined religious ideas and
vindicated religious precepts before the forum of reason. Most Cabalists opposed philosophy. She was the Hagar that
must be driven from the house of Abraham, whereas the Cabala was the Sarah, the real mistress. At the time of the
Messiah the mistress will rule over the bondmaid.
But the study of the Bible was also neglected, Scripture was no longer studied for its own sake, but for the sake of
finding the so-called higher sense by means of mystical hermeneutical rules.
Even the rituals were variously changed and recast. The putting on of the phylacteries and prayer-mantle (talîth) was
accompanied by the recitation of cabalistic formulas and sentences; special prayers were also addressed to the
Sephiroth. Connected with all this was an extravagant, intoxicating superstition. To enable the soul to connect itself
with the realm of light and its spirits, or to be transplanted after death into its heavenly abode, one underwent all
manner of austere ascetical exercises. With the mysterious name of God they believed themselves enabled to heal
the sick, to deliver demoniacs and to extinguish conflagrations. By application of the right formulas of prayer, man was
to have power and influence on both the kingdoms of light and darkness. When the Cabalist prays, God shakes his
head, changes at once his decrees, and abolishes heavy judgments. The magical names of God can even deliver the
condemned and free them from their torments in their place of punishment. In this respect we even meet with the
doctrine of the Catholic mass for the souls*. The Book of Psalms with its songs and prayers was especially considered
as a means of producing all manner of miracles and magic, as may be seen from the Sepher Shimmush Thehillim
(literally, "the Book of the Cabalistic Application of the Psalms"), a fragment of the practical Cabala, translated by
Gottfried Selig, Berlin, 1788.
*Wünsche, whom we have followed, evidently refers to the prayer called Kaddish, for which see my article s.v. in
McClintock and Strong, vol. XII. A very interesting article on "Jüdische Seelenmesse and Totenanrufung" is given by
Dalman in Saat auf Hoffnung (Leipsic, 1890), pp. 169-225.
This sketch of Professor Wünsche is by no means exaggerated*. Mutatis mutandis we find the cabalistic notions
among the Chasidim, a sect founded in 1740 by a certain Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer Baalshem**, also called Besht. Baal-
Shem made his public appearance about 1740 in Tlusti, in the district of Czartkow, from whence he subsequently
removed to Medziboze, in Podolia. The miraculous cures and prophecies attracted attention in large circles; his mode
of life, consisting of contemplation, study of the Zohar and frequent washings in rivers, soon spread a halo around
him. Added to this were the many miraculous reports circulated by his disciples; for instance, that his father had been
visited by the prophet Elijah to predict his birth, and that his mother was a hundred years old when she was delivered
of him; that, when a youth, he had victoriously struggled with evil spirits, etc.--all of which may be found in the Book
Shibche ha-Besht, published in 1815 by the grandson of Baal-Shem, Rabbi Bar Linz. Baal-Shem*** and his
successors received the name Tsaddik, "Saint," and his fame attracted multitudes of Jews from all parts of Poland,
who submitted themselves to his guidance. As long as he lived, the sect formed one great whole, of which he was the
head. After his death, which took place in 1780, it was divided into separate congregations, each of which had its own
Rabbi or Tsaddik or Saint, unreserved devotion to whom is the most important of all the principles of the sect. In a
word, before Pius IX was declared infallible, the Chasidi**** already had their infallible popes, whose number is still
very large in Poland, Wallachia, Moldavia, Galicia, and Palestine. Of these popes of the Chasidim, a modern Jewish
writer, the late David Cassel (died 1893), says: "To the disgrace of Judaism and modern culture the Tsaddikim still go
on with their disgraceful business, and are thus the most essential hindrances to the dissemination of literary progress
in Galicia and Russia. There are still thousands who behold in the Tsaddik the worker of miracles, the prophet, one
who is in close communion with God and angels, and who present him with rich gifts and promulgate the wonders
which they have seen. Covetousness on the one hand and spiritual narrowness on the other are the channels
through which the evil is fed anew."
*Orelli in his article "Zauberei" in Realencyklopädie für protest. Theologie and Kirche, vol. XXI, 1908, p. 618, remarks:
"The Jewish Cabala has promoted the magic degeneration of the religion; to a great extent it furnished profound
expressions and formulas for the exercise of superstitious arts."
** "Lord of the name" = θεοῦργος, a man who by words of conjuration and other formulas knows how to exercise a
power over the visible and invisible world.
***Compare Kahana, Rabbi Israel Baal Schem-Tob, sein Leben, kabbalistisches System and Wirken, Sitomir, 1900.
****Compare Perl, Megalleh temirin, or Die enthüllten Geheimnisse der Chassidim, Lemberg, 1879; Ch. Bogratschoff,
Entstehung, Entwicklung and Prinzipien des Chassidismus, Berlin, 1908.
Christianity.--As soon as the Cabala became better known, Christians betook themselves to its study and paid it the
greatest attention because of the supposed agreement of its teachings with the dogmas of the Christian church. It was
thought that the Cabala was the connecting link between Judaism and Christianity. The dogmas of the Trinity, of the
Messiah as the Son of God and his atonement, were the salient points which especially attracted attention. The first to
be drawn to the Cabala was Raymond Lully, the "Doctor Illuminatus" (1236-1315). He regarded the Cabala as a divine
science and as a genuine revelation whose light is revealed to a rational soul.
The progress of Christianity towards the Cabala was greatly helped by the conversion of a large number of Jews to
Christianity, "in which they recognized a closer relation to their gnostic views, and also by the Christians perceiving
that gnosticism could become a powerful instrument for the conversion of the Jews." Among the converted Jews we
notice Paulus de Heredia of Aragon (about 1480), author of Iggeret ha-Sodot or Epistola Secretorum, treating of the
divinity, death, and resurrection of the Messiah, which has been ascribed to a certain Nechunjah ben-ha-Kanah, who
lived towards the end of the second Temple. Another convert was Paul Ricci*, of the sixteenth century, the friend of
Erasmus, and physician to the Emperor Maximilian I; Julius Conrad Otto, author of the "Unveiled Secrets," consisting
of extracts from the Talmud and the Zohar, to prove the validity of the Christian doctrine (Nuremberg, 1805); John
Stephen Rittengel, grandson of the celebrated Isaac Abravanel, the translator of the Book Jezirah into Latin
(Amsterdam, 1642). Among Christians we may mention Count John Pico di Mirandola (born in 1463), author of LXXII
conclusiones cabbalisticae, Rome, 1486; more especially John Reuchlin (Capnio), 1455-1522. Reuchlin, the first
German scholar who studied the Cabala, wrote two cabalistic treaties, entitled De Verbo Mirifico (Basel, 1494), and De
Arte cabbalistica (Hagenau, 1516)**.
*See my article s.v. in McClintock and Strong.
**These and some other treatises of the same kind are collected by Pistorius in a collection entitled Artis cabbalisticae
scriptores, Basel, 1587.
The first treatise is written in the form of a dialogue between an Epicurean philosopher named Sidonius, a Jew named
Baruch, and the author, who is introduced by the Greek name Capnio. Capnio would have it that the doctrine of the
Trinity is to be found in the first verse of Genesis. He submits, if the Hebrew word bra (bara), which is translated
"created," be examined, and if each of the three letters composing this word be taken as the initial of a separate word,
we obtain the expression ben, ruach, ab, i.e., Son, Spirit, Father. Upon the same principle we find the two persons of
the Trinity in the word abn (eben), "stone," occurring in Ps. cxviii. 22--"the stone which the builders rejected is become
the head of the corner," by dividing the three letters composing the word abn into ab ben, i.e., Father, Son.
The second treatise is also in the form of a dialogue between a Mohammedan, a Pythagorean philosopher and a Jew.
The dialogue is held at Frankfort where the Jew lives to whom the others come to be initiated into the 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 Denudata ("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*; Joseph Gikatilla's Gate of Light (shaar orah); Vital's Doctrine of Metempsychosis
(hagilgulim), 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 (maré 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 drawbacks** the work has been made use of by later scholars,
especially by Chr. Schöttgen in his Horae hebraicae et talmudicae (Dresden, 1733) and Theologia Judacorum de
Messia (ibid., 1742.)
*These three parts are Englished by Mathers.
**Buddeus in Introductio in Historiam Philosophiae p. 104 Hebraeorum (Halle 1702) calls Knorr von Rosenroth's work
"confusum et obscurum opus, in quo necessaria cum non necessariis utilia cum inutilibus, confusa sunt, et in unam
velut chaos conjecta." Knorr von Rosenroth has also written a number of hymns.
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 God-Father (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*.
*Compare also Bischoff, Die Kabbalah, p. 26.
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*.
*Compare Joel, Die Religionsphilosophie des Sohar, Leipsic, 1849, pp. 240 ff.--The Zoharic passages referring to the
Trinity are given in the original with a German translation in Auszüge aus dem Buche Sohar (by Tholuck; revised by
Biesenthal), Berlin, 1857; 4th ed., 1876; also by Pauli, The Great Mystery; or How Can Three Be One, London, 1863.
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 passages* 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 Dalman** 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. Theanswer of the
Cabalists at any rate agrees with the testimony of many of them.
*A collection of the passages referring to the atoning work of the Messiah is given in Auszüge aus dem p. 108 Buche
Sohar, pp. 35 f., more especially in Wünsche, Die Leiden des Messias, Leipsic, 1870, pp. 95-105; and by Dalman,
"Das Kommen des Messias nach dem Sohar" (in Saat auf Hoffnung), Leipsic, 1888, pp. 148-160.
**In his Jesaja 53, das Prophetenwort von Sühnleiden des Heilandes mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der
synagogalen Literatur, Leipsic, 1890.
What are we to think of the Cabala? That there is a relationship between it and neo-Platonism is obvious. Erich
Bischoff* 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 abstruse manner of
representation and the many magic and mystic accessories. But that which is valuable is sufficient to insure for it a
lasting interest.
*The author of Die Kabbalah. Einführung in die jüdische Mystik and Geheimwissenschaft, Leipsic, 1903.
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The Cabala: It's Influence On Judaism & Christianity: Chapter VI