e--and identical with the eternal laws of nature.[335]
Numerous details of Maimonides' interpretations agree with those given
in the books on the "Specific Laws." Whether correspondence of thought
is merely an indication of the similar workings of Jewish genius in
similar conditions, or whether it is the effect of an early tradition
common to both, or whether, finally, there was connection, however
indirect, between the two minds, it is now impossible to say. But at
least the philosophy of Maimonides confirms the inner Jewishness of
the philosophy of Philo, and its essential loyalty to Jewish
tradition.

Not less striking than his correspondence with later Jewish religious
philosophy, though not less indefinite, is the relation of Philo to
the later Jewish mystical and theosophical literature, purporting also
to be a development of hoary tradition, and indeed calling itself
simply the tradition, [Hebrew: kbla]. Between Philo and the Cabbalah it is
as difficult to establish any direct connection as between Philo and
rabbinic Midrash, but the likeness in spirit and the signs of a common
source are equally remarkable. To trace God in all things through
various attributes and emanations, to bring God and man into direct
union, to prove that there is an immanent God within the soul of the
individual, and to show how this may be inspired with the
transcendental Deity--this is common to both. In the earliest times
the mystic doctrine appears to have been a form of Jewish Gnosticism,
speculation about the nature of God and His connection with the world.
It probably embraced the [Hebrew: m'sha br'shit] and the [Hebrew: m'sha
mrkba], though we know not what these exactly contained.[336] But it was
not till the Middle Ages that Jewish mysticism received definite and
separate literary expression, and by that time it was mixed up with a
number of neo-Platonic and magical fancies and foreign theosophies. The
later compilations of this character form what is more regularly known
as the Cabbalah; but, apart from the professions of the later writers,
a continuous train of tradition affirms the existence of secret
teachings in Judaism from the time of the Babylonian captivity. Jewish
mysticism is as much a continuous expression of the spirit of the race
as the Jewish law. We may then without rashness conclude that the
later Cabbalah is a coarser development, for a less enlightened and
less philosophical age, of the Gnostic material which