iterature, in which the sleeper could, like
Daniel, feel himself lapped to rest in the bosom of God.

All the earlier literary forms of mysticism, or theosophy, made
comparatively little impression on Jewish writers. But at the beginning
of the thirteenth century a great development took place in the "secret"
science of the Kabbala. The very period which produced the rationalism
of Maimonides gave birth to the emotionalism of the Kabbala. The Kabbala
was at first a protest against too much intellectualism and rigidity in
religion. It reclaimed religion for the heart. A number of writers more
or less dallied with the subject, and then the Kabbala took a bolder
flight. Ezra, or Azriel, a teacher of Nachmanides, compiled a book
called "Brilliancy" (_Bahir_) in the year 1240. It was at once regarded
as a very ancient book. As will be seen, the same pretence of antiquity
was made with regard to another famous Kabbalistic work of a later
generation. Under Todros Abulafia (1234-1304) and Abraham Abulafia
(1240-1291), the mystical movement took a practical shape, and the
Jewish masses were much excited by stories of miracles performed and of
the appearance of a new Messiah.

At this moment Moses of Leon (born in Leon in about 1250, died in
Arevalo in 1305) wrote the most famous Kabbalistic book of the Middle
Ages. This was named, in imitation of the Bahir, "Splendor" (_Zohar_),
and its brilliant success matched its title. Not only did this
extraordinary book raise the Kabbala to the zenith of its influence, but
it gave it a firm and, as it has proved, unassailable basis. Like the
Bahir, the Zohar was not offered to the public on its own merits, but
was announced as the work of Simon, the son of Yochai, who lived in the
second century. The Zohar, it was pretended, had been concealed in a
cavern in Galilee for more than a thousand years, and had now been
suddenly discovered. The Zohar is, indeed, a work of genius, its
spiritual beauty, its fancy, its daring imagery, its depth of devotion,
ranking it among the great books of the world. Its literary style,
however, is less meritorious; it is difficult and involved. As
Chatterton clothed his ideas in a pseudo-archaic English, so Moses of
Leon used an Aramaic idiom, which he handled clumsily and not as one to
the manner born. It would not be so important to insist on the fact that
the Zohar was a literary forgery, that it pretended to an antiquity it
did not own, were it not that ma