Kabbalah and Gnosticism
Translation and notes by Scott J. Thompson,
From Walter Benjamin Research Syndicate.
Kabbalistic Philosophy and Gnostic
theology
are also occupied with the concepts
of Philo.
The first of these concepts is Being:
abstract,
unknown and nameless. The second is
disclosure:
the concrete which emanates from Being.
The
return to unity is also accepted to
a certain
extent, particularly with the Christian
philosophers.
This return, which is considered third,
approaches
Logos. [1] According to Philo, Wisdom
is
the teacher, High Priest, which leads
the
third back to the first, and thus to
the
vision
(hóros) of God.
Kabbalistic Philosophy Kabbalah is
called
the secret wisdom of the Jews. Much
has been
fabled concerning its origins, and
much of
it is enigmatic. It is said to be embodied
in two books: the Sefer Yetzirah (Book
of
Formation) and the Sefer ha-Zohar (Book
of
Splendor). The Sefer Yetzirah is the
same
primary book which has been attributed
to
Rabbi Akiba. A completed edition is
soon
to appear from Herr von Mayer in Frankfurt.
[2]
There are ideas in the book which lead
into
Philo to a certain extent, but they
do so
in a very enigmatic way, and are presented
more for the Phantasie. It is not as
venerably
ancient as is claimed by those who
revere
it, for they suppose that Adam was
given
this heavenly book as a consolation
for his
fall. It is an astronomical, magical,
medicinal,
prophetic brew. An historical pursuit
of
its traces indicates that it was cultivated
in Egypt.
Akiba was born soon after the destruction
of Jerusalem. In 132 A. D. the Jews
revolted
against Hadrian with an army of 200,000
men.
The Rabbis were also active in the
revolt.
Bar Kokhba had passed for the Messiah
and
was flayed alive.
The second book, Sefer ha-Zohar, is
said
to have originated from a pupil of
Rabbi
Simeon b. Yochai. He was called the
Great
Light, the Spark of Moses. Both Sefer
Yetzirah
and Sefer ha-Zohar were translated
into Latin
in the 17th Century. [3]
In the 15th Century a speculative Israelite,
Rabbi Abraham Cohen Herrera, also wrote
a
book Puerto del Cielo (The Gate of
Heaven)
which is connected to Arab and Scholastic
philosophy. [4] It is an enigmatic
mixture,
but the book does have foundations
which
are universal [allgemeine Grundlage].
The
best within it travels along a conceptual
path similar to Philo. There are certainly
some genuinely interesting determinations
of a fundamental nature [Grundbestimmungen]
in these books, but they tend to lead
to
enigmatic fantasizing. In the early
history
of the Jews one finds nothing concerning
the notion of God as Being of Light,
or of
an opposition between light and darkness
(seen as a struggle between good and
evil);
one finds nothing in early Jewish history
on good and evil angels, or of the
rebellion
of evil, its damnation and sojourn
in hell;
nor anything concerning the future
world
judgment over good and evil, and the
corruption
of the flesh. In these books of the
Kabbalah
the Jews first began to develop their
thoughts
about their reality and to unveil to
themselves
a spiritual, or at least spirit-world,
whereas
they had previously been absorbed in
the
mire and self-importance of their existence
and in the preservation of their people
and
race.
Concerning the particulars of the Kabbalah,
the following can be said here: the
One is
declared the principle of all things,
for
this is the primeval source of all
numbers.
Just as the totality of numbers is
itself
no number, in the same way God is the
foundation
of all things, Ain Sof (without limit).
The
emanations associated with Ain Sof
proceed
from this first cause through contraction
of that original boundlessness; this
is the
hóros (boundary) of the first. In this
first
single cause everything is preserved
eminenter,
not formaliter but rather causaliter.
The second main point is Adam Kadmon,
the
first man, Keter, the first generated,
highest
crown, the Macrocosmos- Microcosmos,
to which
the emanated world is connected as
the flux
of light. Through further emanation
the other
spheres become the circles of the world,
and this emanation is represented as
a stream
of light. Ten streams of light issue
from
the primal source, and these emanations,
Sefirot, compose the pure world of
Azilut
(world of divine emanations), which
is itself
without variability; second, the world
of
Briah (world of creation), which is
variable;
third, the formed world of Yetzirah
(the
pure souls which are deposited in the
material,
the souls of the stars; the pure spirits
are further differentiated as this
enigmatic
system proceeds); and fourth, the established
world of Asiah (world of activation),
which
is the lowest vegetative and sentient
world.
Gnostics Fundamental notions similar
to
those of the Kabbalists constitute
the determinations
(Bestimmungen) of the Gnostic theology.
Herr
Prof. Neander has given us an erudite
collection
of the Gnostics, which he has explained
in
detail. Some of these forms accord
with those
discussed above.
One of the most outstanding Gnostics
is
Basilides. According to Basilides,
the first
is the unspeakable God, theós arretos,
the
Ain Sof of the Kabbalah, which as tó
ón,
o ón [Being] is nameless ('anonómastos),
and immediate, as with Philo.
Second is noús (spirit, mind), the
first
born, Logos Sophía (Wisdom), the active
dynamis
(power) which differentiates more precisely
into justice (dikaiosyne), and harmony
(eiréne). These are followed by further
developed principles which Basilides
calls
Archons, the heads of the spirit realms.
A central issue in this schema is again
the
return, the soul's process of clarification,
the economy of purification, oeconomía
katharoeon,
from the hyle (materia). The soul must
return
to Sophía and harmony. The primeval
essence
contains all perfection within itself,
but
only in potentia; the spirit (noús),
which
is the first born, is only the first
manifestation
of what is veiled, and created beings
can
only obtain true justice in harmony
with
it through connection to God.
The Gnostics, for example Markos, call
the
first the unthinkable, anennóetos,
and even
non-existence, anoúsios. It is that
which
proceeds into the determinate, monótes.
They
also call it the pure stillness, sigé
(silence).
From it proceed Ideas, angels and the
aeons.
These are the roots and seeds of the
particular
fulfillment: lógoi (words), rízai (roots),
spérmata (seeds), plerómata (plenitudes),
karpoí (fruit); and each aeon contains
its
own world within itself.
According to other Gnostics, for example
Valentinus, the first principle is
also called
Aeon or the unfathomable, the primeval
depth,
the absolute abyss, bythos, in which
everything
is sublimated (aufgehoben) before the
beginning
(proárche) or before the Father (propátor).
Aeon is the activator. The transition
or
unfolding of the One is diáthesis (arrangement),
and this stage is also called the self-conceptualizing
of the inconceivable (katálepsis toú
akataléptou),
which we have encountered in Stoic
philosophy
as katálepsis (grasping, conceiving).
These
concepts are the Aeons, the particular
diáthesis,
and the world of the Aeons is called
the
pléroma (plenitude). The second principle
is called the hóros (boundary), the
development
of which is to be grasped in contraries,
the two masculine and feminine principles.
The one is the pléroma of the other,
and
the plerómata (plenitudes) emanate
from their
union, syzygía. The union is the foremost
reality. Each opposite has its own
integral
complement, syzygos; the sum of these
plerómata
is the entire world of Aeons all together,
the universal pléroma of the bythos
(abyss,
depth). The abyss is thus called Hermaphrodite,
the masculine-feminine, arrenóthelys.
Ptolemaios attributes to the bythos
two
pairs (syzygous), two arrangements
or dispositions
(diátheseis) which are presumed through
all
existence: will and thought (thélema
kaí
énnoia). Colorful forms and ornamentation
then enter into the picture. The essential
determinate is the same: abyss and
unveiling.
The manifestation as a descent is also
dóxa
(splendor), Shekhinah of God, Sophía
ouránios
(heavenly wisdom), which refers to
the vision
of God (horasis toú theoú): dynámeis
agénetoi
(uncreated force), “the light about
him flashes
brilliantly” (ai péri autón oúsai lambrótaton
phos apastráptousi), the Ideas, lógos,
or
pre-eminently the name of God (tó ónoma
toú
theoú), the name of the many-named
God (polyónymos),
the Demiurge, i. e., God's appearance.
All
of these forms pass into the enigmatic.
In
general, the fundamental terms of these
different
Gnostic theologies are the same, and
at their
core is an attempt to conceive and
determine
what is in and for itself. I have mentioned
these particular forms in order to
indicate
their connection to the universal.
Underlying
this, however, is a deep need for concrete
reason.
The Church repudiated Gnosticism because
it remained in the universal, and grasped
the Idea in the form of Imagination,
which
then opposed the actual self-consciousness
of Christos in the flesh, Xpristós
én sarkí.
The Docetists say that Christos had
merely
an apparent body and an apparent life.
The
thought was a cryptic one. The Church
stood
firmly opposed to this in favor of
a definite
form of the personality, and it adhered
to
the principle of concrete reality.
Notes
1. Hegel is referring to the Neoplatonic
triad of moné (Being or 'abiding'),
próodos
(the procession from the cause) and
epistrophé
(the return to the cause). - SJT
2. Das Buch Jezira, die älteste kabbalistische
Urkunde der Hebräer (The Book Yetzirah,
The
Oldest Document of the Hebrews). Published
by Johann Friedrich von Mayer, Leipzig,
1830.
3. Hegel is referring to the volume
Liber
Jezirah. Qui Abrahamo Patriarchae adscribitur,
uno cum commentario Rabi Abraham Filii
Dior
super 32 Simitis Sapientiae a quibus
liber
Jezirah incipit. Translatus et Notis
illustratus
a Joanne Stephano Rittangelio. Amsterdami
1642. [For a more complete bibliography
of
Sefer Yetzirah, see Sefer Yetzirah
Bibliography]
- SJT
4. Regarding Herrera, Gershom Scholem
writes
the following in his encyclopaedic
Kabbalah
(1974): “Abraham Herrera, a pupil of
Sarug
who connected the teaching of his master
with neoplatonic philosophy, wrote
Puerto
del Cielo, the only kabbalistic work
originally
written in Spanish, which came to the
knowledge
of many European scholars through its
translations
into Hebrew (1655) and partly into
Latin
(1684).” In another context Scholem
mentions
Herrera's rôle in the discussion of
Spinoza
and Kabbalah: “The question of whether,
and
to what degree, the Kabbalah leads
to pantheistic
conclusions has occupied many of its
investigatior
from the appearance in
1699 of J. G. Wachter's study Der Spinozismus
im Judenthumb, attempting to show that
the
pantheistic system of Spinoza derived
from
kabbalistic sources, particularly from
the
writings of Abraham Herrera.”
In the context of Hegel's short entry
on
kabbalah, the following passage is
worth
quoting from Herrera's book Puerto
del Cielo
(included in a Latin translation in
Christian
Knorr von Rosenroth's Kabbala denudata:
“Adam
Kadmon proceeded from the Simple and
the
One, and to that extent he is Unity;
but
he also descended and fell into his
own nature,
and to that extent he is Two. And again
he
will return to the One, which he has
in him,
and to the Highest; and to that extent
he
is Three and Four” (Kabbala denudata
I, Part
3, Porta coelorum, ch. 8, paragraph
3, p.
116). - SJT
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