Christian Kabbalah

The Christian Kabbalah was a flow, which is usually viewed as a phenomenon of the Renaissance and the Jewish Kabbalah used to search it by a Christian sense or to Jews in order to convert to Christianity. To distinguish between Jewish and Hermetic Kabbalah is often spelled with a C, as Cabala, related; this spelling came with the transmission of kabbalistic texts into Latin.

Description

As in the Jewish Kabbalah, there were no uniform in the Christian doctrine, but practically oriented Kabbalists who then adopted magic, and theoretically oriented, the magic rejected.

Followers of the Christian Kabbalah took the view that Jewish teachings of Christianity and Judaism are valuable contains more truth than claimed by Christians. In particular, in the Kabbalah they saw Christian truths and looked for parallels between Judaism and Christianity; Christianity should in this case be represented as a successor and improvement of Judaism, without losing respect for Judaism. Using the Christian Kabbalah, they tried to convert the Jews and thus the use ( of them from Jewish- Kabbalistic view most misunderstood and misrepresented ) Kabbalah as a weapon against them. For the Christian reinterpretation of the Kabbalah in particular probably two forgeries of the 15th century were responsible who preach Christianity openly.

Due to lack of knowledge of Christian Kabbalists could Talmudic comments do not differ from Kabbalistic teachings and had only fragments Kabbalistic knowledge available; in the case of Johannes Reuchlin as is likely, however, that this ignorance was pushed forward and the rescue of Jewish books served; about the Talmud was regarded as evil and the Kabbalah as a source of Christian truths, and the assertion that certain Talmudic works are kabbalistic, was able to save this before combustion. The ignorance of some authors is, according to Gershom Scholem " horrendous. Robert Fludd kept the Zohar for a rabbi! ".

The Search for Christian content in Kabbalah concluded, among other things, the interpretation of the three different letters in the Tetragrammaton or the upper three Sephiroth as the Trinity and the transfer of Hebrew names for God to the three hypostases of the Christian God or Jesus Christ on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life one, the latter is of Rachel Pollack regarded as the greatest innovation of the Christian Kabbalah. Moreover, turned to Christian Kabbalists methods such Notarikon to find a Christian meaning in the Torah; Gematria, Notarikon and Temura that " in the popular mind as especially kabbalistic ' apply ', however, were overvalued by Christian Kabbalists in their importance and occur in classical kabbalistic literature " often entirely into the background. "

Followers of the Christian Kabbalah were more interested in looking Greek philosophy or Christian content in the Kabbalah as the Kabbalah itself. Even the female the moment of God in the Shechinah, or the lowest sefirah Malchut was not accepted into the Christian Kabbalah.

History

Initial attempts to convert Jews using Kabbalistic ideas have been undertaken in the Middle Ages by Ramon Llull, however Llull himself was not a Kabbalist. When prophetic Kabbalist Abraham Abulafia by some scholars as MH Landauer has seen a move towards Christian ideas, but Abulafia expressed anti-Christian. However Abulafia influenced the development of the Christian Kabbalah. 1480 appeared the Latin translation of Sefer Yetzirah vorkabbalistischen by Mr. Isaac.

Apart as the first Christian Kabbalist of converts, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola applies ( 15th century ); as the first Christian Kabbalistic work are two allegedly falsified Hebrew letters that Pablo de Heredia translated into Latin and commented, but his work consists largely of quotations from non-existent Kabbalistic works and distorted quotes from genuine kabbalistic sources such as the Zohar. Were first systematized Christian Kabbalistic teachings by Paul Ricius, who was also familiar with lesser known texts. He worked as a translator, among others, Josef Gikatillas main work Scha'are Orah, in Ricii translation Portae lucis, The Gates of Light. Also familiar with the sources of the Kabbalah was the convert Pietro Colonna Gala Tino, the De Arcanis Catholicae veritatis, About arcane Catholic truth ' wrote. In the 16th century published translations of Sefer Yetzirah and the Zohar by Guillaume Postel and a bilingual edition ( Hebrew / Latin) Sefer Yetzirah by the Johannes Stephanus ride Angelus. Johannes Pistorius the Younger published with Artis cabalisticae a selection of Kabbalistic texts, including Ricii Portae lucis and the Sefer Yetzirah translation of 1480th However, the most famous compilation of Jewish and Christian Kabbalistic texts should Kabbalah denudata of Christian Knorr von Rosenroth be that some Jewish texts from the period after the expulsion from Spain contained.

Elements of Kabbalah can be found in contemporary magic works by authors such as Johannes Trithemius, Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (in conjunction with medieval angelology, demonology and the associated magic in book 3 of De occulta philosophia ) and John Dee, in Dee originate the Kabbalistic influences probably exclusively from Christian sources, especially of Agrippa. From the late 16th century a mixture of alchemy and Christian Kabbalah including by Paracelsus took place. This evolved into the 17th and 18th century, Abraham von Frankenberg and Robert Fludd was responsible for Henry Khunrath, typical and culminated with Georg von Welling's Opus Mago - Cabbalisticum and the books of Friedrich Christoph Oetinger.

Representative designated as an occult philosophy flow as Agrippa and Pico, tried to develop philosophies, assimilate the hermetic, Hebrew and classical knowledge, and to combine this with fusion of Christian theology. Despite its esoteric character of the occult philosophy underlying hermetic and kabbalistic ideas in Europe were taken Renaissance initially positive. The historian Frances A. Yates studied the occult philosophy even as the driving force behind the renaissance itself It is probably no coincidence that the occult philosophy, the value placed on unit, during the time of the Reformation and the Renaissance became popular; may have been expected of her and her association of such diverse sources as classical wisdom, magic, the Hebrew Kabbalah and Christianity, to offer a solution to the religious and political schism of the time. During the scholastic Middle Ages called faith and piety, the Renaissance called individual pursuit and the search for knowledge; Hermeticism tried to unite knowledge and belief. Towards the end of the 16th century Christian Magi as Agrippa and John Dee, however, were suspected because of their theurgy, and as part of the Counter-Reformation and the reaction grew against the Renaissance Neoplatonism and associated occult currents. The Christian Kabbalah, which initially served the legitimacy of occult thought, has now been devalued because of the occult association and associated with witchcraft. Dee and Giordano Bruno were discredited because of their philosophy; former spent his last years in poverty, the latter was burned in 1600.

Later Christian Kabbalists often followed Pico and Reuchlin, who had allied themselves second-hand sources; just learned of the Jews and in the Hebrew language, but they were often not far beyond the books from which they had learned the language beyond.

The Christian Kabbalists were of great importance for the development of the Hermetic Kabbalah.