the same source - we will not venture to suggest, how high up - while each made such use
of it as suited their distinctive tendencies? At any rate the Kabbalah also, likening Scripture
to a person, compares those who study merely the letter, to them who attend only to the
dress; those who consider the moral of a fact, to them who attend to the body; while the
initiated alone, who regard the hidden meaning, are those who attend to the soul. Again, as
Philo, so the oldest part of the Mishnah19 designates God as Maqom - `the place' - the
τοπος, the all-comprehending, what the Kabbalists called the EnSoph, `the boundless,'
that God, without any quality, Who becomes cognisable only by His manifestations.20
17. For want of handier material I must take leave to refer to my brief sketch of the Kabbalah in the
`History of the Jewish Nation,' pp. 434-446.
18. Chag. ii. 1.
19. Ab. v. 4.
20. In short, the λογος σπερµατικος of the Stoics.
The manifestations of God! But neither Eastern mystical Judaism, nor the philosophy of Philo,
could admit of any direct contact between God and creation. The Kabbalah solved the difficulty
by their Sephiroth,21 or emanations from God, through which this contact was ultimately
brought about, and of which the EnSoph, or crown, was the spring: `the source from which the
infinite light issued.' If Philo found greater difficulties, he had also more ready help from the
philosophical systems to hand. His Sephiroth were `Potencies' (δυναµεις), `Words' (λογοι),
intermediate powers. `Potencies,' as we imagine, when viewed Godwards; `Words,' as viewed
creationwards. They were not emanations, but, according to Plato, `archetypal ideas,' on the
model of which all that exists was formed; and also, according to the Stoic idea, the cause of all,
pervading all, forming all, and sustaining all. Thus these `Potencies' were wholly in God, and yet
wholly out of God. If we divest all this of its philosophical colouring, did not Eastern Judaism
also teach that there was a distinction between the Unapproachable God, and God manifest?22
21. Supposed to mean either numerationes, or splendour. But why not derive the word from σψαιρα?
The ten are: Crown, Wisdom, Intelligence, Mercy, Judgment, Beauty, Triumph, Praise, Foundation,
Kingdom.
22. For the teaching of Eastern Judaism in this respect, see Appendix II.: `Philo and Rabbinic Theology.'
Another remark will show the parallelism between Philo and Rabbinism.23 As the latter speaks
of the two qualities (Middoth) of Mercy and Judgment in the Divine Being,24 and distinguishes
between Elohim as the God of Justice, and Jehovah as the God of Mercy and Grace, so Philo
places next to the Divine Word (θειος λογος), Goodness (αγαθοτης), as the Creative
Potency (ποιητικη δυναµις), and Power (εζουσια ), as the Ruling Potency
(βασιλικη δυναµις), proving this by a curious etymological derivation of the words for
`God' and `Lord' (Θεος and κυριος) - apparently unconscious that the LXX., in direct
contradiction, translated Jehovah by Lord (κυριος), and Elohim by God (Θεος)! These two
potencies of goodness and power, Philo sees in the two Cherubim, and in the two `Angels'
which accompanied God (the Divine Word), when on his way to destroy the cities of the plain.