Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/847

KABBALAH 813 deeds of the man and by the ways in which he walks. If the man is pure and his conduct is pleasing in the sight of God, he is united with that female part of the soul which was his component part prior to his birth" (Zohar, i. 91). The soul s destiny upon earth is to develop those perfections the germs of which are eternally implanted in it, and it ultimately must return to the infinite source from which it emanated. Hence, if, after assuming a body and sojourning upon earth, it becomes polluted by sin and fails to acquire the experience for which it descends from heaven, it must three times reinhabit a body, till it is able to ascend in a purified state through repeated trials. If, after its third residence in a human body, it is still too weak to withstand the contamination of sin", it is united with another soul, in order that by their combined efforts it may resist the pollution which by itself it was unable to conquer. When the whole pleroma of pre-existent souls in the world of the Sephiroth shall have descended and occupied human bodies and have passed their period of probation and have returned purified to the bosom of the infinite Source, then the soul of Messiah will descend from the region of souls ; then the great Jubilee will commence. There shall be no more sin, uo more temptation, no more suffering. Universal restora tion will take place. Satan himself, "the venomous Beast," will be restored to his angelic nature. Life will be an everlasting feast, a Sabbath without end. All souls will be united with the Highest Soul, and will supplement each other in the Holy of Holies of the -Seven Halls (Zohar, . 45, 168; i:. 97). According to the Kabbalah all these esoteric doctrines are contained in the Hebrew Scriptures. The uninitiated cannot perceive them ; but they are plainly revealed to the spiritually minded, who discern the profound import of this theosophy beneath the surface of the letters and words of Holy Writ. " If the law simply consists of ordinary expressions and narratives, such as the words of Esau, Hagar, Laban, the ass of Balaam, or Balaam himself, why should it be called the law of truth, the perfect law, the true witness of God ? Each word contains a sublime source, each narrative points, not only to the single instance in question, but also to generals" (Zohar, iii. 149, cf. 152). To obtain these heavenly mysteries, which alone make the Torah superior to profane codes, definite hermeneutical rules are employed, of which the following are the most important. (1) The words of several verses in the Hebrew Scriptures which are regarded as con taining a recondite sense are placed over each other, and the letters are formed into new words by reading them vertically. (2) The words of the text are ranged in squares in such a manner as to be read either vertically or boustrophedon. (3) The words are joined together and redivided. (4) The initials and final letters of several words are formed into separate words. (5) Every letter of a word is reduced to its numerical value, and the word is explained by another of the same quantity. (6) Every letter of a word is taken to be the initial or abbreviation of a word. (7) The twenty-two letters of the alphabet are divided into two halves ; one half is placed above the other ; and the two letters which thus become associated are interchanged. By this permutation, Alcph, the first letter of the alphabet, becomes Lamed, the twelfth letter ; Beth becomes Mem, and so on. This cipher alphabet is called Albam, from the first interchangeable pairs. (8) The commutation of the twenty-two letters is effected by the last letter of the alphabet taking the place of the first, the last but one the place of the second, and so forth. This cipher is called Atbash. These hermeneutical canons arc much older than the Kabbalah. They obtained in the synagogue from time immemorial, and were used by the Christian fathers in the in terpretation of Scripture. Thus Canon V. , according to which a word is reduced to its numerical value and interpreted by another word of the same value, is recognized in the New Testament (comp. Rev. xiii. 18). Canon VI. is adopted by Irenreus, who tells us that, according to the learned among the Hebrews, the name Jesus con tains two letters and a half, and signifies that Lord who contains heaven and earth [It^pKI D DE niiT] (Against Heresies, ii. xxiv., vol. i. p. 205, cd. Clark). The cipher Atbash (Canon VIII.) is used in Jeremiah xxv. 26, li. 41, where Sheshach is written for Babel. In Jer. li. 1, inrj 3^, Leb-Kamai (A.V., "the midst of them that rise up against me ), is written for DHfcJO, Chald&a, by the same rule. It is necessary to advert to the relation between the Kabbalah and Christianity in order to account for the extraordinary part which this theosophy played in the I Christian church, especially at the time of the Renaissance. We have already seen that the Sephiric decade, or the archetypal man, like Christ, is considered to be of a double nature, both infinite and finite, perfect and imperfect. More distinct, however, is the doctrine of the Trinity. On Deut. vi. 43, where Jehovah occurs first, then Elohenu, and then again Jehovah, we are told " The voice though one, consists of three elements, fire (i.e , warmth), air (i.e., breath), and water (i.e., humidity), yet all three are one in the mystery of the voice and can only be one. Thus also Jehovah, Elohenu, Jehovah, constitute one three forms which are one " (Zohar, ii. 43 ; compare iii. 65). Discussing the thrice holy in Isaiah vi. 3, one codex of the Zohar had the following remark : " The first holy denotes the Holy Father, the second the Holy Son, and the third the Holy Ghost" (comp. Galatinus, De Arcanis Cathol., lib. ii. c. 3, p. 31 ; Wolf, Bibliotheca Hebraica, i. 1136). j Still more distinct is the doctrine of the atonement. " The I Messiah invokes all the sufferings, pain, and afflictions of Israel to come upon Him. Now if He did not remove them i thus and take them upon Himself, no man could endure , the sufferings of Israel, due as their punishment for trans- | gressing the law ; as it is written (Isa. liii. 4), Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows " (Zohar, ii. 12). These and similar statements favouring the doctrines of the New Testament have made many Kabbalists of the highest position in the synagogue embrace the Christian faith, and write elaborate books to win their Jewish brethren over to Christ. As early as 1450 a company of Jewish converts in Spain, at the head of which were Paul de Heredia, Vidal de Saragossa de Aragon, and Davila, published compilations of Kabbalistic treatises to prove from them the doctrines of Christianity. They were followed by Paul Rici, professor at Pavia, and physician to the emperor Maximilian I. Sharing the conviction of his fellow converts that the doctrines of the Kabbalah are the doctrines of Christianity, this eminent Hebraist trans lated into Latin the Kabbalistic work entitled The Gates of Light, which he dedicated to the emperor (1516). It was from this work that Pico de Mirandola and John Reuchlin learnt the true secrets of the Kabbalah. Prominent among the " nine hundred theses " which Mirandola had placarded in Rome, and which he undertook to defend in the presence of all European scholars, whom he invited to the Eternal City, promising to defray their travelling expenses, was the following : " No science yields greater proof of the divinity of Christ than magic and the Kabbalah." Mirandola so convinced Pope Sixtus of the paramount importance of the Kabbalah as an auxiliary to Christianity that his holiness exerted himself to have Kabbalistic writings translated into Latin for the use of divinity students. With equal zeal did Reuchlin act as the apostle of the Kabbalah. His treatises exercised an almost magic influence upon the greatest thinkers of the time. Pope Leo X. and the early Reformers were alike captivated by the charms of the Kabbalah as propounded by Reuchlin, and not only divines, but statesmen and warriors, began to study the Oriental languages in order to be able to fathom the mysteries of Jewish theosophy. Though the followers of this theosophy claim two works as their codes, viz., the Boole of Creation and the Zohar, it is really only the latter which is the Bible of the Kabbalists. The renowned Zohar is written in Aramaic, and is a com mentary on the Pentateuch, according to its division into fifty-two hebdomadal lessons. It derives its name "inn. i.e., Light, from the words "Let there be light" (Gen. i. 4), with the exposition of which it begins. Interspersed