CABBALA (from Heb. kibbel, to receive), the received doctrine, by which is not to be understood the popularly accepted doctrine, but that inner or mystical interpretation of the law which the Cabbalists allege that Moses received from God in the mount, and sub sequently taught to Joshua, who in his turn communicated it to the 70 elders, and which has ever since been the treasure of the select Jews. Since the 12th c., the study of this secret lore has gradually resulted in a distinct school and literature, the elements of which, however, are already visible in the Macedonian epoch, and the real or histor ical source of which is to be found in the eastern doctrine of emanation. In Philo, in the Talmud, etc., we certainly find theologico-philosophical conceptions, which were at a later period taken up and modified; but the first book on cosmogony is Jezirah, a pro duction of the 7th c., attributed to Akiba. After the second half of the 12th c., the Cabbalistic doctrines, which had at first been confined to such high themes as God and creation, began to include exegesis, ethics, and philosophy, and so became a kind of mystical religious philosophy. The numerous Cabbalistic writings composed during the
three subsequent centuries, professed to teach the secret or mystical sense of Holy Writ, and the principles on which it is grounded, the higher meaning of the law, as well as the method of performing miracles, by the use of uivine names and sacred incantations. The Cabbalists, moreover, prepared hooks, which they attributed to the oldest authori ties—for instance, Sohar, a work written in Aramaic. during the 13t11 c., and fathered upon Simeon-ben-Joachai, a scholar of Altiba. This beeame.the Bible of the Cabbalistic .neophytes. The chief opponents of the Cabbalists were the philosophers, and in part the Talmudists. Towards the close of the 16th c., the Cabbalistic wisdom, which by that time had degenerated into magic and word-juggling, received a new impulse from its teachers in Palestine and Italy. Since the time of Reuchlin, many Christian schol ars have investigated the subject.