The Secret Doctrine Volume 3.pdf

Let us throw a rapid retrospective glance at the history and the tribulations of that very same
Zohar, as we know of them from trustworthy tradition and documents. We need not stop to
discuss whether it was written in the first century B.C. , or in the first century A.D. Suffice it
for us to know that there was at all times a Kabalistic literature among the Jews; that though
historically it can be traced only from the time of the Captivity, yet from the Pentateuch down
to the Talmud the documents of that literature were ever written in a kind of Mysterylanguage,
were, in fact, a series of a symbolical records which the Jews had copied from the
Egyptian and the Chaldaean Sanctuaries, only adapting them to their own national history - if
history it can be called. Now that which we claim - and it is not denied even by the most
prejudiced Kabalist, is that although Kabalistic lore had passed orally through long ages
down to the latest Pre-Christian Tanaim, and although David and Solomon may have been
great Adepts in it, as is claimed, yet no one dared to write it down till the days of Simeon Ben
Iochai.
Authorship of the Zohar- (Page 167) In short, the lore found in Kabalistic literature was
never recorded in writing before the first century of the modern era.
This brings the critic to the following reflection: While in India we find the Vedas and the
Brahmanical literature written down and edited ages before the Christian era - the
Orientalists themselves being obliged to concede a couple of millenniums of antiquity to the
older manuscripts; while the most important allegories in Genesis are found recorded on
Babylonian tiles centuries B.C.; while the Egyptian sarcophagi yearly yield proofs of the
origin of the doctrines borrowed and copied by the Jews; yet the Monotheism of the Jews is
exalted and thrown into the teeth of all the Pagan nations, and the so-called Christian
Revelation is placed above all others, like the sun above a row of street gas lamps. Yet it is
perfectly well known, having been ascertained beyond doubt or cavil, that no manuscript,
whether Kabalistic, Talmudistic, or Christian, which has reached our present generation, is of
earlier date than the first centuries of our era, whereas this can certainly never be said of the
Egyptian papyri or the Chaldaean tiles, or even of some Eastern writings.
But let us limit our present research to the Kabalah, and chiefly to the Zohar - called also the
Midrash. This book, whose teachings were edited for the first time between 70 and 110 A.D.,
is known to have been lost, and its contents to have been scattered throughout a number of
minor manuscripts, until the thirteenth century. The idea that it was the composition of Moses
de Leon of Valladolid, in Spain, who passed it off as a pseudograph of Simeon Ben Iochai, is
ridiculous, and was well disposed of by Munk - though he does point to more than one
modern interpolation in the Zohar. At the same time it is more than certain that the present
Book of Zohar was written by Moses de Leon, and, owing to joint editorship, is more
Christian in its colouring than is many a genuine Christian volume. Munk gives the reason
why, saying that it appears evident that the author made use of ancient documents, and
among these of certain Midraschim, or collections of traditions and Biblical expositions, which
we do not now possess.
As a proof, also, that the knowledge of the Esoteric system taught in the Zohar came to the
Jews very late indeed - at any rate, that they had so far forgotten it that the innovations and
additions made by de Leon provoked no criticism, but were thankfully received - Munk
quotes from Tholuck, a Jewish authority, the following information: Haya Gaon, who died in
133