Gisbertus Voetius on the Jewish Kabbalah

 

Select Theological Disputations [Utrecht, 1659], pgs. 226-234

The Kabbalah, or Kabbalistic Art, is to be referred to superstition, insofar as it is used by Jews and by Christians who, in this matter, Judaize through zeal (καταζηλίαν), to investigate and understand the mysteries of theology and other sciences. The name Kabbalah is derived from the Chaldean root קבל (qbl), from which, in the conjugation with dagesh, kibbel means ‘to accept, to receive, to take up.’ Hence the noun kabbalah, that is, doctrine handed down and received from the ancestors.

There are, among the Rabbis and Talmudists, four meanings of this word:

The most general: for any doctrine, tradition, or learning (μαθήσις), a knowledge which, with respect to the teacher, is called Torah, that is, instruction, constitution, or tradition — in Greek, παράδοσις; and with respect to the learner (as in Proverbs 4:2 and Isaiah 29:24), that is, reception. Kimchi, in his lexicon, explains maddangh (מרע), that is, knowledge, and the Targum translates it as olpana (אולפנא), that is, doctrine.

A broad sense: for any doctrine of divinity handed down either orally or in writing. Thus, even the writings of the Prophets and the Hagiographa, as distinct from the writings of Moses, are called Kabbalah by the Talmudists — since the prophets received each prophecy according to the conditions of time, persons, and matters. This reasoning is given in Halichot Olam, chapter 2.

A stricter sense: for sacred doctrine divinely handed down, not in writing, but orally and by hand of the teachers — which is commonly designated by the name deuteroseis (secondary teachings); and this comprises the entire Talmudic and Kabbalistic wisdom, handed down from Moses to the time of Antoninus. This is how the author of Halichot Olam, chapter 1, understands it, where he calls the experts in traditions ba'alei ha-kabbalah ve-ha-shmuah (בעלי הקבלה והשמועה), that is, the most expert in esoteric and traditional teachings

The strictest sense: for doctrine divinely handed down by hand, but proposed mystically and enigmatically, and to be drawn out by the wise. Taken in this way, kabbalah, or the Kabbalistic art, is described as a method or system — both historical and dogmatic — proposed mystically and enigmatically, for investigating and explaining [truth] from the letters of words (whether simple or compound), above and beyond the literal sense.

Therefore, the entire system of this Kabbalistic art is founded upon and presupposes the pseudo-theology received among Jews and Roman Catholics, based on a twofold sense of Scripture: the literal and the mystical. The Rabbis are accustomed to call the former derash, and the latter paschat (פשט). But we reject this distinction and adhere to a single sense in the question of Scripture, where several of our more distinguished authors are indicated who treat this matter thoroughly and professionally.

As for allegories, hieroglyphs, riddles, emblems, and other types of symbolic doctrine (about which Maximilian Sandaeus writes in his works on symbolic theology), these have their proper use — but only for drawing comparisons of similar or dissimilar things, and consequently for the illustration and explanation of things and words for understanding or memory aid — but in no way for real proof, unless the Holy Spirit or some other solid reason beyond mere similarity confirms it.

Comparison and analogy can be made either in words, and in their letters and syllables, or in the things signified by words. Kabbalistic doctrine must be referred to the former. The affections of words, among which similarity is noted, are various and commonly noted by logicians, rhetoricians, and grammarians. None of these are properly considered by Kabbalists, but only the letters and syllables; hence, their mystical interpretations are not inappropriately called elementary by Sixtus of Siena (Book 3 of his Bibliotheca, p. 171, 4th edition), since they deal with the signification of the simple elements or letters."

Among the Greeks, Hebrews, and other Eastern peoples (and I remember the same being asserted of the Dutch by the editors of the first Dutch grammar published in Amsterdam), the letter serves a double function: as a sign both of syllabification and of numeration. Hence it is that, first and rightly, all Kabbalah is divided into that which concerns the articulation of syllables and words from letters, and that which concerns the number signified by letters as numerical signs.

1. The former is that which, either from the resolution of the letters of a given word or from a new and diverse arrangement of the same, deduces multiple meanings—both historical and mystical (i.e., allegorical, tropological, anagogical)—from the Scriptures. The types of this are Notarikon, Temurah, and Atbash.

1. Notarikon is that kind of Kabbalah in which each letter of a word is taken to signify an entire word beginning with that letter. For example, in 1 Kings 2:8, concerning the word נמרצת (nimretzet), David Kimchi in his commentary observes ררש (resh resh shin), which is a mystical or Kabbalistic interpretation—i.e., a Notarikon—wherein the letters signify the following words from Jewish masters, as explained by Jerome in his Hebrew questions on 1 (or 3) Kings 2:8: נ (nun) = נאף (na’af), ‘adulterer’; מ (mem) = מואב (Moab), ‘Moabite’; לדר רוצה (rozeh l'dar) = ‘murderer’; א (aleph) = אורע (ora), ‘leper’; ת (tav) = תועבה (to'eva), ‘abomination’.

Such plays of ingenuity—or rather, to speak frankly, triflings—were sometimes practiced by the ancients. For example, the author writing under the name Cyprian in the tract De Sina Sion, §4, and Augustine in Tractate 9 on John, and from him Bede in his commentary on John, derive the four regions of the world from the name Adam written in Greek: ἀνατολή (east), δύσις (west), ἄρκτος (north), μεσημβρία (south). Likewise, regarding the same name, someone whimsically wrote, perhaps a forger of Sibylline verses, at the end of Book 2, p. 217, Paris edition, 1607.

This enigmatic species of Kabbalah was known to the ancient Greeks, as is evident from the life of Aesop, who interpreted the letters AB TOEX inscribed on a column as Ἀποβὰς Βήματα Τέσσαρα Ὀρύξας Εὑρήσεις Θησαυρόν, i.e., “Departing, dig four steps and you shall find treasure,” etc.

To this category also belongs that method by which each syllable of a word or expression signifies a full word; as also when simple words, by abbreviation, stand for entire statements, with the remaining parts understood and mentally supplied to complete the sense. A famous example is the elliptical and contracted oracle in Daniel 5:25—Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin—truly mystical, since it carries the divine and infallible meaning and interpretation.

Other forms of Notarikon could also be established, some of which are in regular use among the Rabbis—for example, when the initial, medial, or final letters of separate words are combined to draw out a new and appropriate meaning; or when words proposed in one text are sought out in others, and meaning is drawn from how those words are constructed or used—so that the meaning is adapted to the vocabulary of the given text.

These differ greatly from the first type of Kabbalistic pedantry and nonsense, such as acrostics and other innocent poetic tricks found in common verse booklets, as well as the many types of abbreviation used in every language—especially those notable symbols familiar to ancient Roman scribes, who for that reason were called notarii, as Ausonius alludes to in the verse, “Puer notarum praepetum” (“Boy of the swift notes”).

Concerning these and other signs of hidden or abbreviated writing, and the many kinds of cryptography, Hermann Hugo has collected numerous examples from ancient and modern sources in his treatise De Prima Scribendi Origine, chapters 19–28. The abbreviations of the Masoretes and Rabbis—that is, words and sentences indicated by letters, called רשי תיבות (roshei teivot, ‘initials of words’)—were collected and explained by Johann Buxtorf the Elder in Tiberias or The Masoretic Key, and in his treatise on abbreviations. It should be noted that this innocent art of abbreviated writing is called Notarikon and Ketav Notarikon in the Talmudic tract Shabbat, fol. 105, and in Shemot Rabbah, p. 8, and in Yalkut on the Prophets, fol. 36, col. 3.

2. Temurah is that kind of Kabbalah which forms other words from transposed letters of a word or words, and from this elicits mystical and secretly signified meanings. Transposition agrees with that (i.e., Temurah) in method, but differs in end and form—commonly called anagrammatism, not infrequent among those writing Latin or vernacular verse. About these, as well as their relatives—logogriphs, acrostics, telestichs, palindromes, etc.—see Poetica Giessena, Book 2, Chapter 5.

There are two types of Temurah:

One is by transposition of letters. For example, הבראם (heberam), i.e., “they were created in them,” by transposing the letters becomes אברהם (Abraham). From this, the Kabbalists conclude that the world was created because of the merits and piety of Abraham. Likewise, כרוב (cherub, i.e., cherubim) by transposing the letters becomes ברוך (baruch), i.e., “blessed”; from this they conclude that God, the Blessed One, conveys all kinds of blessings to the lower worlds through those blessed ones—the cherubim (i.e., the angels).

The other is by transformation of the Hebrew alphabet, for example when each letter of the alphabet is exchanged with another—this type of permutation is called Zirufin, i.e., “conjugations” or “pairings.” They number these permutations as 242, though hundreds, even thousands more could be formed.

With this type of Temurah agree all cryptographic techniques in content (i.e., material), about which Trithemius in his Steganographia, Giovanni Battista della Porta, Hermann Hugo, and most fully Gustavus Selenus in his nine books Cryptomenytices et Cryptographia have written. Under this type of Temurah is properly included, as a special subtype, Atbash, about which we will soon speak.

To the same category belongs the related mutation of syllables and words, if indeed we wish to extend the boundaries of Kabbalah—transformations which may occur by many modes: in order, potency, form, as shown in Selenus’s cited tract, Book 7.

Atbash is a type of Kabbalah which teaches the transformation of the Hebrew alphabet, and from it derives mystical meanings. For instance, if Tan is written, it is taken to mean Aleph, and so on—Shin for Beth, and so forth. According to this method, מצפן (Matzphatz) is the same as יהוה (YHWH); and in Jeremiah 25:2, 26; 1:0.41, Schefakh is equivalent to Babel—if we are to believe Jonathan’s Targum and Rabbi Selomoh (Rashi?) along with Rabbi David Kimchi in their commentaries. But from the context, the outcome of the story, and from the name of the Babylonian idol (whose festival was celebrated when the city was taken), the ancient and modern commentators correctly conclude the meaning, so that there is no need to resort to Kabbalistic art. Nevertheless, Jerome embraces this method, and from the moderns Cornelius a Lapide, who is displeased that Scaliger, in De Emendatione Temporum, Book 6, p. 578, calls this “a most foolish fiction of the Rabbis” (where he wants Selach in Jeremiah 5:1 to be the name of a goddess).

Another Kabbalah called Gematria by the Rabbis is when, from the characters of a word, by equivalence in arithmetical computation, a mystical sense is derived from another word with the same numerical value. Two modes can be defined:

Either the simple letters of a word are taken as numerical values just as they are written; or

Each letter fully spelled out yields a number. For example: יתרן (Jethro) makes the number 968. For יוד (Yod), fully spelled out makes 20; היו (Hey-Vav) makes 416; ריש (Resh) makes 10; fully spelled out ויו (Vav-Vav) makes 22.

Examples of the former, simpler Gematria can be seen in the blasphemies of some recent Jews, noted by us in Part 2 of the Select Disputations on Judaism. The Sibylline Oracles (so-called), Book 1, near the end, derive a marvelous arithmantic Kabbalah from the name Ἰησοῦς (Jesus), whose letters add up to 888. But the reasoning of the verse does not hold, nor does the sentence make sense, as Opsopaeus observes in his notes, where many other conjectures can also be found.

These, then, are the chief types of Kabbalah.

Buxtorf mentions in his work on abbreviations the Kabbalah Alba, but this is just a type of Notarikon.

There is also another division of Kabbalah based on subject matter, into theoretical and practical, which the Rabbis call עִיוֹנִית (iyunit) and מַעֲשִׂית (ma'asit). Again, they divide it into philosophical or physical and theological. The former they call Bereshit, which investigates the powers of the heavens and the causes of sublunar things. The latter they call Merkavah, which is symbolic or mystical theology and the contemplation of divine things.

What remains now is to inquire about Kabbalah: whether and to what extent it has any use in theology or other sciences, or whether the whole concept and practice of it is vain, foolish, and superstitious. The Rabbis assert that through it mystical meanings are drawn beyond and above the simple or literal sense of Scripture, and they strive to demonstrate this everywhere in their commentaries—especially in those called derashim.

Talmudic authorities, in Tract. Rosh Hashanah, fol. 19, say that the words of the Kabbalah are equivalent to the words of the Law. And this is not surprising, since they believe the Kabbalah was handed down from God to Moses, and that it must be accepted absolutely as the word of God.

Among the most recent Jewish writers, Rabbi Menasseh ben Israel, in his Conciliator, Question 50 on Exodus, explicitly asserts the divine authority of the Kabbalah among his people. Not only does he establish this, but he also elevates the Kabbalists far above the scriptural scholars (who, according to him, sit at the lowest benches), and above the Mishnah and Talmudic doctors. He compares the latter to pharmacists, who, when preparing potions and medicines from various simples, do not understand their powers, but only follow the physicians’ prescriptions. But the students of the Kabbalah, he says, are like the physicians themselves, who understand the causes and reasons for the things prescribed to the sick.

In the same place, a little earlier, he cites the divine Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai in the sacred book Zohar, who affirms that the text or historical account of the Law is the body, while its soul is the Mishnah, which alone is considered by the wise servants of the most high King.

Some Christians have followed in their footsteps—though not all equally—such as Jerome, in the cited place and in his letter to Paul of Urbino, in the preface to his commentary on the Prophets, where he shows what mysteries are contained in the combinations of individual Hebrew letters. Pico della Mirandola, princeps, in his Heptaplus and in his Apologia, Question 5; Reuchlin frequently in his three books On the Kabbalah and in De Verbo Mirifico, Book 2, Chapter 9; Archangelus of Burgonovo, a Minorite, in his interpretation of the doctrines of the Kabbalists, excerpted from Pico della Mirandola; Paulus Riccius, a converted Jew and Christian, in De Coelesti Agricultura, Books 3 and 4, where he explicitly defends the Kabbalah, with the official approval of the theological faculties of the universities of Bologna, Padua, Ferrara, and Paris; Pistorius, in the preface to the Kabbalistic writers printed in Basel; Franciscus Georgius of Venice, in his Problemata, whom Marin Mersenne attacked but Gaffarel defended in his Treatise on the Hidden Mysteries of Divine Kabbalah.

Even Sixtus of Siena (Book 2 and 3 of his Bibliotheca Sancta) does not disapprove of this. Indeed, Popes Alexander VI and Leo X approved of Pico della Mirandola and Johann Reuchlin respectively. About this, there is no doubt.

Gaffarel, in the book just cited, p. 11, brings in as supporters not only those already mentioned, but also Nazianzen (Gregory), and among the Roman Catholics: Galatinus, Medina, Rhodiginus, Justinian the bishop of Nebiensis, Calius Rhodiginus, Paulus of Middelburg, Antonius Margarita, Porchetus, Antonio de Guevara, Goropius Becanus. And among our own people: Fagius, Bibliander, Gesner, Neander, and Seddon—although I do not accept what Gaffarel claims about them, because either they spoke only historically about the nature and authority of the Kabbalah among the Jews, or they used the machinery of the Kabbalah ad hominem, to refute the Jews with their own methods.

Postellus, also cited there, I have already shown in the first part of this disputation (title De Atheismo) to be either a fanatic or a fool.

If anyone wants to know who wrote about the Rabbinic methods of interpreting Scripture, let him consult Halichot Olam, edited in Hebrew and Latin by Constantine L’Empereur, and the 13 Methods of Interpreting the Pentateuch by Rabbi Ishmael, edited by Philip of Aquino, a Jewish convert, in Paris with a commentary in the year 1629.

On the Kabbalistic art, among or besides the authors already mentioned—those who seek a taste of it and a summary should consult R. Menasseh ben Israel in Conciliator, Question 50 on Exodus. Those with more time and access to books should add: Buxdorf's Abbreviations, Rittangel’s Notes on Sefer Yetzirah, Sixtus in Bibliotheca, Books 2 and 3, Serrarius on Joshua 10, Question 2, Alsted, Systema Mnemonicum, Book 4, Chapter 31, Thomas Gerson in his Italian treatise Piazza Universale, Discourse 20 (which discusses many aspects and various authors, both Rabbis and Christians), and on page 118 of the notes to that discourse: Thomas Erastus against the Paracelsians, Peter Garcia the bishop in a final treatise against Pico della Mirandola, Caelius Calcagninus in a letter to Thomas Calcagninus.

Also add: St. des Accords in the French book Bigarrures, Book 4, p. 42; Buxdorf, Synagoga Judaica, Chapter 1; Henricus Cornelius Agrippa, De vanitate scientiarum, Chapter 47; also his De Occulta Philosophia, Book 2, where he extensively discusses numerical Kabbalah, Chapters 2–22.

Jewish Kabbalistic writers who devote themselves professionally to this pseudo-wisdom are frequently cited by Buxdorf in his Bibliotheca Rabbinica. Among them, one of the chief works is the book called Raziel, which delves into magical mysteries in a way not unusual among Kabbalists.

The Jewish Kabbalah coincides with or at least strongly resembles the heresy of the Gnostics, especially the Valentinians, the abuse of hieroglyphs, the Pythagorean and Platonic philosophies regarding numbers, the Lullist method, and the so-called Hermetic or Paracelsian teachings—all varieties of pseudo-wisdom that seek mysteries in names, letters, numbers, etc.

The hieroglyphs of the Egyptians, what they were and how they were used, are explained by Pierius in his vast volume on that wisdom, and by Mercerus in the preface and notes to his edition of Horapollo's Hieroglyphics (Greek and Latin), and by Conrad Rittershusius, Lectura Sacra, Book 1, Chapter 5. Athanasius Kircher, in his Prodromus Copticus, p. 272, ch. 736, also addresses the Kabbalistic nature of Hermetic and Paracelsian sayings.

After Erastus, Sennert briefly touches on this in his Treatise Against the Paracelsians, Chapter 13. Keckermann already warned against the Lullist method of philosophizing in his Praecognita Logica.

The Valentinian, Ophitic, and Gnostic Kabbalah is treated by Epiphanius, Augustine, and others.

On the vain search for mysteries in numbers and names, more than enough has been said above in Part 2, and the relevant authors have been identified—even among Roman Catholics, including Hermannus Hugo in the place cited, and Delrio, Disquisitiones Magicae, Book 1, Disquisition 4, Sections 94 and 3, who is sharply critical of those who over-Kabbalize or Platonize. Yet, he spares the names of many. He ought to have added Abbot Trithemius, Archangelus of Burgonovo, and the other Kabbalah supporters I have mentioned above.

We furthermore add Bongus on the mysteries of numbers, Serrarius on Joshua 3, question [x]; Cornelius a Lapide in his commentary on Deuteronomy 5:12 and Leviticus 25, p. 747; Christoph Besold in part 2 of his Philosophico-Theological Axioms, p. 320, where he asserts that mystical meanings can be drawn out through the Kabbalah.

As for the arguments by which the vanity of the Kabbalah is proven, there is no need to labor greatly, since it has already been shown that no solid conclusion can be drawn from letters to names, from names to things, from some similarity of names to a similarity of things, or from a real likeness of things to their identity. Furthermore, numbers, words, figures, and characters have no real efficacy.

Add to this the fact that anything whatsoever can be derived from anything and about anything by this lazy art — whether by notarikon (and its various methods, such as Athbash and Albam), or by temurah (i.e., anagramming), or by gematria. Those with abundant leisure can try this on hundreds of words and impose it on the Jews.

Christian Kabbalists, for example, who attempt to prove something against the Jews from the name "Jesus" or "Nazarene" or "Son of Mary," etc., will easily be refuted by the same art. For example, from that name (יֵשׁוּ), through notarikon, they [the Jews] extract:

"וזכרו שמו ימח" — that is, "Let his name and memory be erased."

And from the same name, the letters of which sum to 316 (Yod = 10, Shin = 300, Vav = 6), they extract through gematria:

"נכר אלהי" — that is, "Foreign gods," where the same number 316 appears (Aleph = 1, Lamed = 30, He = 5, Yod = 10, Nun = 50, Kaph = 20, Resh = 200).

We have pointed out another gematria fabricated from the name of Rabbi Judah de Modena in our treatise On Judaism, part 2, §14.

It therefore follows that no study of Kabbalah should be pursued except a historical one — just as we strive to know the fables of the Muslims, Pagans, Jews, and heretics. And it has no proper use in establishing the Christian faith (despite the hyperbolic claims of Pico della Mirandola, Reuchlin, and the like), except in ad hominem refutations or counterarguments — as the ancient Fathers used the mythologies and corrupt doctrines of the Gentiles to defend our faith against them.

Nor does it help this art at all that the verses of Psalm 119 begin in octets with the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet, for that is a purely mnemonic, not mystical, artifice.

Nor do the examples from Daniel 5 (Mene, Mene) and Revelation 13:18 about the number of the Antichrist prove anything; for just because the Spirit hides and reveals a mystery somewhere does not mean this should be imitated at will by all, since not all have received the key from Him to lock and unlock at will.

Let them therefore consider that this saying of Luke 9 applies to them: "You do not know of what spirit you are."