tradition handed down from the first patriarchs of the human race; and
the evil Cabala, wherein this sacred tradition was mingled by the Rabbis
with barbaric superstitions, combined with their own imaginings and
henceforth marked with their seal.[41] This view also finds expression
in the remarkable work of the converted Jew Drach, who refers to--

The ancient and true Cabala, which ... we distinguish from the
modern Cabala, false, condemnable, and condemned by the Holy See,
the work of the Rabbis, who have also falsified and perverted the
Talmudic tradition. The doctors of the Synagogue trace it back to
Moses, whilst at the same time admitting that the principal truths
it contains were those known by revelation to the first patriarchs
of the world.[42]

Further on Drach quotes the statement of Sixtus of Sienna, another
converted Jew and a Dominican, protected by Pius V:

Since by the decree of the Holy Roman Inquisition all books
appertaining to the Cabala have lately been condemned, one must
know that the Cabala is double; that one is true, the other false.
The true and pious one is that which ... elucidates the secret
mysteries of the holy law according to the principle of anagogy
(i.e. figurative interpretation). This Cabala therefore the Church
has never condemned. The false and impious Cabala is a certain
mendacious kind of Jewish tradition, full of innumerable vanities
and falsehoods, differing but little from necromancy. This kind of
superstition, therefore, improperly called Cabala, the Church
within the last few years has deservedly condemned.[43]

The modern Jewish Cabala presents a dual aspect--theoretical and
practical; the former concerned with theosophical speculations, the
latter with magical practices. It would be impossible here to give an
idea of Cabalistic theosophy with its extraordinary imaginings on the
Sephiroths, the attributes and functions of good and bad angels,
dissertations on the nature of demons, and minute details on the
appearance of God under the name of the Ancient of Ancients, from whose
head 400,000 worlds receive the light. "The length of this face from the
top of the head is three hundred and seventy times ten thousand worlds.
It is called the 'Long Face,' for such is the name of the Ancient of
Ancients."[44] The description of the hair and beard alone belonging to
this gigantic countenanc