Cabalistic speculation and practice presented in the Talmudic documents in detached glosses proceeded to become more systematic in what is known as the Geonic period (from about 500-900 or 1000 A.D). Jewish mysticism de veloped a literature of its own which however has been preserved only in fragmentary form. From what is known of the contents of this literature, it is certain that and cos mogony were central in its speculative inter ests, while theurgic practice, the art of produc ing by mystic words and names certain effects, was another department of its preoccupation. In theosophy, the nature and personality of Metifitron; the dimensions of God, or those of this mediator, presented the principal theme for discussion. The work entitled (Shiur the proportions of the (divine) stature, is devoted to the latter. Descriptions of the celestial halls or Hekaldt and of the visits and experiences of saints and ascetics that made the furnish the matter of other treatises. To cosmogonic mysticism be long works treating of the "six days of Crea tion," the story of the conflict between God and Primal Water, or between the and "Feminine° Waters, descriptions of Paradise and the lower world. As for theurgic art, these fragmentary remnants of mystic litera ture present expositions of the power vested in such as know the names of angels, or of the prophylactic virtue of the knowledge and the use of mystic names.
The most important work by far is the famous Sepher Yeziridi, the book of the Crea tion. Its date is in doubt. Certain it is that before the. beginning of the second Christian millennium it had come to be regarded as one of the most important books calling for and receiving commentation at the hands of the most learned. According to this book the fundamentals of all being are Sephirot or potentialities. These mediate between God and Creation. They comprehend first three emana tions, one direct from God and the other mediate, viz.: (1) Spirit or air (Hebrew Roach), from which came (2) water, which in turn was condensed into (3) fire. To these are added six dimensions, three to the right and three to the left. The 10th element is the Spirit of God. All 10 are eternal, the first three being, however, pre-existent. They are the substance of all that is, the form being supplied by the 22 letters of the Hebrew alpha bet. Between substance and form is a con trast. Creation consists in resolving This con trast. God is the solvent. Through Him as the solvent, existence, i.e., combination of form and substance, takes on reality.
The Neo-Platonic and Pythagorean char acter of the books' theorizing is evident. To some sectaries the affirmations of the treatise seemed too strongly anthropomorphic. They therefore posited between God and universe a mediator, the 'Prince of the World," to whom they imputed all acts of creation and to him they referred the corporeal descriptions of God found in the Bible.
Among the systems that to a certain degree were impregnated with Cabalistic Pantheism, and in turn exercised a determining influence on the further evolution of Jewish mysticism, that of Ibn Gabirol holds a prominent place, as his philosophy seemed to confirm the theory of God's immanence, underlying the central. theory of the Cabala, that of successive emana tion.
Subsequently the Cabala differentiated into that of the German Jews, and that of the Jews of Spain and Provence. Among these Eleazar
of Worms and Abraham Abulafia deserve men tion as exponents of the doctrine. They held that God was too exalted to be cognized by human intellect. Btit between the Unknowable God and man searching for God was God's KAU or Glory, created by God out of His own primal fire. This "Glory" has shape and dimension. It is seated on a Throne in the east but screened by a curtain open alone in the west. To this Mod the descriptive adjectives of the Bible refer. Four worlds are in exist ence: (1) That of this "glory)); (2) that of the angels; (3) that of the animal soul; (4) that of the intellectual soul. This German mysticism on its practical side was a reaction against the dominancy of Talmudic scholarship as the sole measure of piety. It substituted for study prayer, which it viewed as a mystic progress toward God. It reveled in states of ecstasy, as a protest against the barren ration alism and unstirred sobriety of the schools' dia lects. Fasting, asceticism and meditation were resorted to to bring on the coveted ecstatic states, or recourse was had to the mystic names of angels and the deity.
The Cabala of the Provence traced its origin to a revelation by the prophet Elijah to Jacob ha-Nazir, who in turn initiated Abraham, son of David of Posquieres, whose son (Isaac the blind) again transmitted the doctrines to his followers. This invoking of the prophet Elijah shows that the mystics of Spain and the Provence regarded their doctrines as of divine authority. That it had come to them from afar — from Babylon by way of Greece and Greek philosophy — is now the theory of the compe tent scholars. The more important expositions are comprised in the following works: (1) Azilut) or treatise on emanation; (2) (Bahir,) in which a new classification of the Sephirot is given and the doctrine of con tinuous emanation is advanced; (3) Azriel's book, written °to present Cabala to philosophers with a view of making it acceptable to them)); (4) a number of pseudo-epigraphic books of the second half of the 13th century, based on the foregoing; (5) the one publication com monly regarded as the Bible of the Cabala, the (Splendor, based on Dan. xii, 3), writ ten in the form of a commentary on the Penta teuch and introduced as R. Simon ben Yochai's production. Analysis demonstrates that the Zohar is °an aggregate of heterogeneous parts? The compilation probably is not older than the beginning of the 14th century. It received its present form largely at the hands of Moses de Leon. Later Cabalists, either exponents or opponents of the Zohar, were Joseph ben Abraham, Ibn Wakar, Moses Botarel, Isaac Arama, Isaac Abravanel, Abraham Saba, Isaac Luria, Moses Zacuto and others. The Cabala found readiest acceptance among the Jews in Turkey and in Poland. The pseudo-messian ism of Shabbatai Zewi (1665) rested to a cer tain extent on Cabalistic expectations, asceti cisms, keeping vigils at frequent intervals, per forming baptismal ablutions, doing penance, having marked the practices of the adherents of the later Cabalistic teachers, who regarded these acts as preparatory to leading pure lives and expressive of love for man, virtues that were hoped to usher in the coming of the promised Redeemer.