3. Origin, date, and desicn of the Kabbalah, and its relation to Platonic and Nee-Platonic p/zilosophy.—The origin and date of this theosophy have been greatly obscured by modern writers, who, in their description of the Kabbalah, con. found its doctrines with Me Yowish nzysticism pro pounded in the works called aze Alphabet of R.Akiba (NTpv Nn,m N6t.: NZTV -11 nrrow, the description of the body of God pulp -ore,), and the delineation of Me heavenly temples (rbz+n). Even the book yetzira (711'Y MD)* does not contain the doctrines of the Kabbalah. All these productions, and others of a similar nature so frequently quoted by writers who give an analysis of the Kabbalah, know nothing of tke Sephiroth, and of the speculations about the En Soth, or the being of God, which constitute the essence of the Kabbalah. Nevertheless, these works are un questionably to be regarded as having called the Kabbalah into existence, by the difficulty in which they placed the Jews in the south of France, and in Catalonia, who believed in them almost as much as in the Bible, and who were driven to contrive this system whereby they could explain to them ! selves, as well as to their assailants, the gross descriptions of the Deity, and of the plains of heaven, given in these IIagadic productions. Being unable to go to the extreme of the rigid literalists of the north of France and Germany, who, without looking for any higher import, implicitly accepted the difficulties and anthropomorphisms of the Bible and Hagada in their most literal sense ; or to adopt the other extreme of the followers of Maimonides, who rejected altogether the Hagaciic and mystical writings, and rationalized the Scriptures, Isaac the blind contrived (r6npti nro priv"")), and his two disciples, Ezra and Azariel of Zerona, developed, the Kizbbalah (about 1200-1230), Which steers between these two extremes. By means of tke Sepkiroth all the anthropomorphisms in the Bible, in the Hagada, and even in the Shiur Kama, are at once taken from the Deity, and yet 1.t.erally explained ; whilst the sacrificial institutions, the precepts, and the ritual of the Bible and Talmud, receive at the same time a profound spiritual iin port. The Kabbalak is therefore a hermeneutical system, which originated about 1200-1230 to oppose the philosophical school of Maimonides.
The relationship between the Kabbalah and Neo Platonism is apparent. The A.-abbalah elevates God above being and thinking ; so Neo-Platonism (Irkeoca obalas, &enacts, yob' Kul polio-ads). 771e Xabbalah denies all divine attributes •, so Neo Platonism. The Kabbalah, like Neo-Platonisin,
places intelligent principles or substances lietween the Deity and the world. The Kabbalah teaches that the Sephiroth which emanated from God are not equal to God. Neo-Platonism teaches that the substances vas., ifron, and Otiorts, which proceeded from one being, are not equal to their origin (mix/goy 1-6 x-poiop TLP 1.1.ECYCZYTL). In classifying the Sephi roth, the Kabbalah has adopted the division into three great world spheres, voin, Oacn, and o56a-ts 6:Vri c1)3/, enn thlv, and vzun thlr), and employs the forms e•rno, j,,Zt,no, and The comparison between the emanation of the Sephiroth from the Ell S015h, and the rays proceed ing from light to describe immanency and perfect unity, is the same as the Neo-Platonic figure em ployed to illustrate the emanations from the one Being (otov EK OLOTOS ThY irepiXap4tv). The doctrine of the Kabbalah, that most of the souls which enter the world have occupied bodies upon this earth before, is Neo-Platonic (comp. Zeller, Geschichte der Philosophic', vol. iii., part ii., p. 944).
4. Lltencture.—Asariel, Conzmentary on the doc trine of the Sephiroth '1U1.1/ VIVD) questions and answers, Warsaw 1798, and Berlin 185ci ; and by the same author, Commentacy on the Song of Songs, Altona 1763, falsely ascribed to Nachmanides. These works are most essential to a proper understanding of the Kabbalah, inasmuch as Asariel was the first Kabbalist. The celebrated Sohar, Mantua 1558- 156o, Lublin 1623 -1624, Sulzbach 1684, Amsterdam 1715, and 1728 ; Zunz, Die gotteidienstlichen Vortriige der Yuden, Berlin 1832, p. 402, ff. ; Landauer, in Literaturblatt des Orients, vol. vii., IS45; vol. viii., p. S I 2, ff. ; Franck, La Kabbale, on la philosophic religiense des 7uifc, Par. 1842 ; Ubersetzt VOli yellinek, Leipzig 1344 ; Joel, Die Religionsphilosophie a'es Sohar, Leipzig 1849 ; Jellinek, Moses ben Schem-Tob de Leon, Leipzig 1851 • Beitrh:gr zur Geschichte der !Cabbala Leipzig ;852 ; Aurwahl Kabbalischo Mystik, 'Leipzig 1853 • and Philosophie rind' A'ab balah, Leipzig 1854 ; gteinschneider, .7e-wish Litera ture, London 1857, p. lo4-115, Munk, Iltrelanges de philosophic yuive et Arabe, Paris 1859, p. t90, ff. ; and especially the masterly analysis of the Sohar by Ignaz Stern, Ben Chananja, vols. i.-v.; the lucid treatise of Graetz, Geschichte der yirden, vol. vii., 442-459; and the able review of it by Dr. Low, Ben Chananja, vi. p. 325, ff., Leipzig 1863, p. 73•85.—C. D. G.