templation of all that is around him, he ultimately arrives at the
conclusion of the unity of God"[19]; but since this process is
accomplished by an arrangement of the Divine Emanations under the name
of the Ten Sephiroths, and in the permutation of numerals and of the
letters of the Hebrew alphabet, it would certainly convey no such
idea--nor probably indeed any idea at all--to the mind uninitiated into
Cabalistic systems. The Sepher Yetzirah is in fact admittedly a work of
extraordinary obscurity[20] and almost certainly of extreme antiquity.
Monsieur Paul Vulliaud, in his exhaustive work on the Cabala recently
published,[21] says that its date has been placed as early as the sixth
century before Christ and as late as the tenth century A.D., but that it
is at any rate older than the Talmud is shown by the fact that in the
Talmud the Rabbis are described as studying it for magical purposes.[22]
The Sepher Yetzirah is also said to be the work referred to in the Koran
under the name of the "Book of Abraham."[23]

The immense compilation known as the _Sepher-Ha-Zohar_, or Book of
Light, is, however, of greater importance to the study of Cabalistic
philosophy. According to the Zohar itself, the "Mysteries of Wisdom"
were imparted to Adam by God whilst he was still in the Garden of Eden,
in the form of a book delivered by the angel Razael. From Adam the book
passed on to Seth, then to Enoch, to Noah, to Abraham, and later to
Moses, one of its principal exponents.[24] Other Jewish writers declare,
however, that Moses received it for the first time on Mount Sinai and
communicated it to the Seventy Elders, by whom it was handed down to
David and Solomon, then to Ezra and Nehemiah, and finally to the Rabbis
of the early Christian era.[25]

Until this date the Zohar had remained a purely oral tradition, but now
for the first time it is said to have been written down by the disciples
of Simon ben Jochai. The Talmud relates that for twelve years the Rabbi
Simon and his son Eliezer concealed themselves in a cavern, where,
sitting in the sand up to their necks, they meditated on the sacred law
and were frequently visited by the prophet Elias.[26] In this way,
Jewish legend adds, the great book of the Zohar was composed and
committed to writing by the Rabbi's son Eliezer and his secretary the
Rabbi Abba.[27]

The first date at which the Zohar is definitely known to have appeared
is the end of the thirteenth century, when it was com