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when they were in danger of being destroyed by the Inquisition, as
well as find practical uses for what was contained within them. For
this reason a kind of Christian Kabbalah (often spelled cabala)
developed in the 15th century. It had as its goal the harmonization of
Kabbalah with Christian doctrines, and found ripe justification for the
Christian Doctrine of the Trinity in the Kabbalah's first three
sepheroth, or "Holy Upper Trinity".
The two primary sources for "Christianized Cabala" were the writings
of 'conversio' Jews in Spain (sometimes called "crypto-jews"), or Jews
who converted to Catholicism, and the Platonic Academy, supported
by the Medicis, in Florence.
Those writing from Jewish converts in Spain that most effected
Kabbalah's development began at the end of the 13th century and
lasted until the Jewish "Diasphora" from Spain in 1492. Writers such
as Abner of Burgos and, Paul de Heredia secretly wrote several
Christian Cabalistic works in the name of Judah ha-Nasi and other
famous mystical authors. Two of their most famous texts are, Iggeret
ha-Sodot and Galei Rezaya. Other works were put out in Spain until
the end of the 15th century by Jewish converts, often imitating the
styles of other well known and respected works, such as the Zohar.
However, such imitation was common and accepted in that period,
and in itself is not enough to doubt the integrity of the author
involved.
The Florentine schools had a greater impact than the writings of
Jewish writers in Spain. While the Spanish texts were often translated
and to a greater or lesser degree available, they won few if any
converts from Judaism to Christianity, or from Christianity to the
effectiveness of the Kabbalah. The Florentine school developed the
belief that an indisputable source for the validation of Christianity,
and neo-Platonic, Pythagorean, and Orphic thought was discovered in
Kabbalah. Also, they believed that in Kabbalah, the long, lost secrets
of the Catholic, and possibly original Christian faith, had been
rediscovered. The principle founder of this Christian Cabalistic school
was Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-94). This young genius
began his kabbalistic studies in 1486 at the age of 23, and had a large
selection of kabbalistic material translated into Latin by Samuel ben
Nissim who was himself a convert to Catholicism. Pico later had
Raymond Moncada, known as Flavius Mithridates, translate for him
as well. Among his 900 theses that he publicly displayed for debate in
Rome included the statement, "no science can better convince us of
the divinity of Jesus Christ than magic and the Kabbalah," thus
bringing the Kabbalah to many in the Christian world for the first
time.
The Church's reaction was one of fierce opposition and rejection to
this and other propositions made by Pico. The public debate Pico
wanted was guaranteed. Kabbalah now became the principle
discussion in the Christian intellectual world, as it was seen as an
otherwise unknown Jewish esoteric doctrine that had been overlooked
or lost completely. Christian Platonists in Germany, Italy, and France
quickly attached themselves to Pico's school of thought. Pico's works
also caused Johannes Reuchlin, the famed Christian Hebrew scholar,
to undertake kabbalistic studies, publishing two books on it as a result
- De Verbo Mirifico (On the Miracle-Working Name, 1494) and De
Arte Cabalistica (on the Science of the Kabbalah, 1517).
Between the publishing of Reuchlin's Verbo and Arte, a number of
works appeared from the pen of Paul Ricius. Ricius was himself a
convert to Catholicism, as well as the physician to Emperor
Maximilian, and had a reputation for being erudite. Ricius took the
ideas of Pico and Reuchlin and added to them his own conclusions
based upon kabbalistic and Christian sources, forming a doctrine of
the "Divine Name" and its relationship to world history.
According to Ricius, all of world history could be divided into three
stages based upon the names of God found in the Bible. The first
period was the natural period where God reveals himself through the
three lettered Divine Name Shaddai (The Strong). The second phase is
the Torah period, were God reveals to Moses the Divine Name of four
letters, the Tetragrammaton, or YHVH. The final period, or period of
grace and redemption, God reveals the Tetragrammaton plus the fifth
letter shin, or the letter of the Logos (Christ), spelling Yehoshua or the
Cabalistic rendition of Jesus, name. Thus, the name of Jesus, or the
Miraculous Name, become the pronounceable name of the previously
unpronounceable YHVH. To support his argument, Ricius used
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