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CHAPTER III.
ESDRAS AND THE ANCIENT JEWISH CABALA.—EMANATIONS, WHAT.—MEANING OF THE WORD BERASIT.—SEPHIROTHS AND EMANATIONS CONTINUED.—ORIGIN OF TIME.—PLANETS OR SAMIM. —OBSERVATIONS ON THE PRECEDING SECTIONS.
1. As all the ancient Heathen nations had their mysteries or secret doctrines, which the priests carefully kept from the knowledge of the vulgar, and which they only communicated to a select number of persons whom they thought they could safely trust; and as the Jewish religion was anciently the same as the Persian, it will not be thought extraordinary, that, like the Persian, it should have its secret doctrines. So we find it had its Cabala, which, though guarded like all ancient mysteries, with the most anxious care, and the most solemn oaths, and what is still worse, almost lost amidst the confusion of civil brawls, cannot be entirely hidden from the prying curiosity of the Moderns. In defiance of all its concealment and mischances, enough escapes to prove that it was fundamentally the same as that of the Persian Magi; and thus adds one more proof of the identity of the religions of Abraham and of Zoroaster.
The doctrine here alluded to was a secret one—more perfect, the Jews maintain, than that delivered in the Pentateuch; and they also maintain, that it was given by God, on Mount Sinai, to Moses verbally and not written, and that this is the doctrine described in the fourth book of Esdras, ch xiv. 6, 26, and 45, thus:
These words shalt thou declare, and these shalt thou hide.
And when thou hast done, some things shalt thou publish, and some things shalt thou shew secretly to the wise.
. . . . the Highest spake, saying, The first that thou hast written publish openly, that the worthy and the unworthy may read it: but keep the seventy last, that thou mayest deliver them only to such as be wise among the people. For in them is the spring of understanding, the fountain of wisdom.
Now, though the book of Esdras be no authority in argument with a Protestant Christian for any point of doctrine, it may be considered authority in such a case as this. If the Jews had had no secret doctrine, the writer never would have stated such a fact, in the face of all his countrymen, who must have known its truth or falsity. No doubt, whatever might be pretended, the real reason of the Cabala being unwritten, was concealment. But the Jews assert that, from the promulgation of the law on Mount Sinai, it was handed down, pure as at first delivered. In the same way they maintain, that their written law has come to us unadulterated, without a single error. One assertion may be judged of by the other. For, of the tradition delivered by memory, one question need only be asked: What became of it, when priests, kings, and people, were all such idolaters, viz. before and during the early part of the reign of the good King Josiah, that the law was completely forgotten—not even known to exist in the world? To obviate this difficulty, in part, the fourth book of Esdras was probably written.
2. The following passage may serve, at present, as an outline of what was the general nature of the Cabala:
“The similarity, or rather the coincidence, of the Cabalistic, Alexandrian, and Oriental philosophy, will be sufficiently evinced by briefly stating the common tenets in which these different systems agreed; they are as follow: All things are derived by emanation from one principle: and this principle is God. From him a substantial power immediately proceeds, which is the
