We are reminded by this indefinite title that among the Jews, as throughout the greater part of the East, hnman knowledge, whether historioal or scientific, rested principally on a sort of tuceeetum, and the best dain for its reception was an unbroken chain of tra- ditiooaiy evidence. Hence the care with which Juda- ism established the regular consecution of the sacred niatndians of truth, from Moses through Joshua and the so-called greater prophets, thence through Ezra uid **the Great Synagogue*' to the teachers of later times, subdividing at length into the various schools or periods of particular rabbis and their hereditary ad- l^mtk While, therefore, the truth was gradaally cxlAited in the writings of the Law, the Prophets, and thsTalamd, the Cabals indicates the verbal exposition
n.— A
I of these, orally transmitted along with them, and not I generally known to the people, but containing a deep- ! er or more thoroughly initiated style of instruction. ' It thus came ultimately to designate a particular theo- logico-philosophical system, that arose and established I itself in the bosom of Judaism, yet in a measure inde- pendent of, or rather supplementary to it.
II. Oriffmal Doctanents, — Instruction in Judaism be- ing principally verbal and founded on memory, its phases of development could necessarily leave but lit- tle mark on history; and as such a philosophy would thus naturally, in process of time, become a mystery, at least in the view of posterity, the origin and prog- ress of the Cabala are yet largely matters of conjecture, and it is even a subject of scientific controversy wheth- er in its speculative form it can be distinctiy traced earlier than the Middle Ages, although its leading principles appear to have been derived ftt>m ancient documents, the nature of which is still very imperfect- ly understood, such as the so-called revelations of Adam, Abraham, Moses, Ezra, etc See Apocbtfha. The Talmud, indeed (both in the Mishna and Gemara of the tract Chagiga, passim), makes mention of a doc- trine imparted only to a few careftiUy selected persons, and even applies to it certain fanciful names (drawn fnmi the phraseology of Gen. i, 1, and Ezek. i, 1), sig- nificant respectively of a speculative coemdogy and a speculative ihedUtgy; but it is uncertain whether these designate definite treatises, or, if so, whether these have in any identifiable form descended to modem times. The only worits which can with any propriety daim to eml>ody these earliest views are the following two, that became the acknowledged texts of the Cabala in the lat- ter part of the Middle Ages ; a third cabalistic treatise (called the "TTV^ *^&D, 8q^ Badwr, or Choice Book\ which is found in an edition of Amst. 1651, and attrib- uted to a rabbi, Nechoniah Ben-Hakana, of the first century, has long ago been generally acknowledged to be fictitious, although a cabalistic work of the same title is mentioned as early as the fourteenth century.
The first of these is the Book of Creation C^fiD n'1*^:£*^, Sffiher Tetdrah, often reprinted, as ed. Steph. Rittangel, Amst. 1642, with a Latin translation and commentary ; and the ed. of J. F. van Meyer, with a German translation and commentary, Leipz.1830, 4to), ascribed to the renowned rabbi Akiba (A.D. 120). It is a rather short treatise, in oracular sentences, the language of which, more obscure in import than in form, does not resemble the Hebrew of the Mishna. As a book of th^ same title appean to be already men- tioned in the Gemara, where wonderfhl power is as- critled to it, and as R. Saadias is said to have com- mented upon it as early as the tenth century, it in certain that we can ascend to a considerable antiquity in tracing its authority. See Jbzibah.
CABALA
The other and more important cabalistic text is the celebrated^oofco/'L^A^pn'Wn '^^^, Sepkerhaz-Zohar, from Dan. xii, 8), first printed at Cremona and Man- tua in 1560, and since often reprltated, as'atSolzbach in 1684, foL, with varioas additions. Tradition as- cribes this work to a contemporary of R/Akiba, name- ly, R. Simeon Ben Jocbd, a teacher much praised in the Talmud for his great wisdom and legal knowledge, although nothing is there said directly of his writings. Incredulous criticism considers it as a production of the thirteenth century, the time of its first appearance in the histoiy of literature, and ascribes it to a Spanish Jew, Moses of Leon. It appears, however, to be older than this, having probably originally appeared piece- meal in the East at intervals, the whole being com- pleted in its present form about the eighth century. It includes certain special tracts or treatises, in which the author seems especially to develop his own senti- ments, and which form, so to speak, tiie kernel of the science sought to be imparted. Three of these are designated by particular names (Tie Book of Confidence, and the Qrtater and Leas Collections) ; the popular dis- tinction made by the Jews, however, between a great and a small Zohar sometimes refers to the varying ful- ness of the editions merely. See Zohab.
III. Fundameatal Doctrines, — These are somewhat difierently expounded in the above-named books (to the separate articles on which the reader is therefore referred for ftill particulars), and most at large in the latter. The following, however, is a summary of the cabalistic views as expressed in the general writings of later authors of that school :