Chapter 1064

[←1053]

The author of the Qabbalah makes several attempts to prove conclusively the antiquity of the Zohar. Thus he shows that Moses de Leon could not be the author or the forger of the Zoharic works in the thirteenth century, as he is accused of being, since Ibn Gebirol gave out the same philosophical teaching 225 years before the day of Moses de Leon. No true Kabalist or scholar will ever deny the fact. It is certain that Ibn Gebirol based his doctrines upon the oldest Kabalistic sources, namely, the Chaldæan Book of Numbers, as well as some no longer extant Midrashim, the same, no doubt, as those used by Moses de Leon. But it is just the difference between the two ways of treating the same Esoteric subjects, which—while proving the enormous antiquity of the Esoteric System—points to a decided ring of Talmudistic and even Christian sectarianism in the compilation and glossaries of the Zoharic system by Rabbi Moses. Ibn Gebirol never quoted from the Scriptures to enforce the teachings (Myer’s Qabbalah, p. 7). Whereas Moses de Leon has made of the Zohar that which it has remained to this day, “a running commentary on the Five Books, or Pentateuch” (ibid.), with a few later additions made by Christian hands. One follows the Archaic Esoteric Philosophy; the other, only that portion which was adapted to the lost Books of Moses restored by Ezra. Thus, while the system, or the trunk on which the primitive original Zohar was engrafted, is of an immense antiquity, many of the (later) Zoharic offshoots are strongly coloured by the peculiar views held by Christian Gnostics (Syrian and Chaldæan), the friends and co-workers of Moses de Leon who, as shown by Munk, accepted their interpretations.