ZOHAR, z6'hir, the Bible of the Kabbal ists, long reverenced by Jewish mystics and re garded by some as higher than the Bible and the Talmud but proved a clever forgery. The secret science of the Kabbala received a marked development at the beginning of the 13th century, when a mystic, Ezra or Azriel (b. 1160; d. 1238), compiled a work called 'Brilliancy' Bahir'). In an atmosphere of reputed mira cles and a new Messiah, there appeared some years later the most famous Kabbalistic book of the time— the 'Zoller.) or 'Splendor.' It was offered as the work of Simon ben Jochai, a sage of the 2d century, of whom many legends are told. He is said to have spent years in soli tude, a hermit receiving special revelations. It was claimed that for over a thousand ran the (Zobar' had been concealed in a cave m Galilee and had been at last brought to light. The hi crary forger who 'discovered' the 'Zoliar' was Moses of Leon (b. Leon, about 1250• d. Arevalo, 1305), who employed an Aramaic idiom to gist the book an air of antiquity, and with such skill that Jew and Christian alike were deceived and some even to-day attribute to it hoary age. Yet his widow declared that it was a forgery.
The character of the (Zohar) can hardly he dismissed as unique in literature, with its fantastic, imaginative and emotional elements. It is a medley of spirituality and coarseness, a strange combination of intellectuality and gross ness, whose influence has been far-reaching and whose adherents have numbered hundreds of thousands. It is a work without method, a kind of impressionist commentary on the Pen tateuch, half homily, half meditation, dwelling largely on the "higher" sense of Scripture and allowing every opportunity for vague and mys tic interpretation. Hence the moral perver
sions that abound, the blasphemy and absurd ity. The pre-existence of the soul is assumed —paradise and hell are alike depicted, the varieties of sin described with painful minute ness, Messianic speculations indulged in, and views favorable to the dogma of the Trinity uttered, while communion with departed spir its, celestial hosts and angels completes the farrago of nonsensical speculation. Such an aberration is rare in the history of Judaism and has been productive of much harm. Its soil has nourished gross superstitions and strengthened the belief in ghosts and evil spir its; its mode of interpretation has degraded the study of the Bible and spread the wildest fancies. At one time it was high in favor with the papacy when the Talmud was condemned to the flames, hut it was later included in the Index Expurgatorius. Its occasional Christian tone was not overlooked by Christian scholars —Pico di Mirandola (1463-94) and Reuchlin (1455-1522) both made the (Zoliar) the basis of their vindication of Jewish literature. Its literary influence, however, was not long re tained. It developed a few "saints" and "mir acle workers," spurious Messiahs and the like, but it. has had no successor. In absorbing the miasma of the earlier Kabbalistic literature, it left no germs for further development. (See