kabbalah Gershom scholem

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT 21
Shimmushei Tehillim, which has been printed many times in Hebrew and also
exists in manuscript in an Aramaic version.
The poetical content of the literature of the ma 'aseh merkabah and the
ma 'aseh bereshit is striking; we have already noted the hymns sung by the
J:zayyot and the ministering angels in praise of their Creator. Following the
pattern of several of the Psalms, the view was developed that the whole of
creation, according to its nature and order, was singing hymns of praise. A
hymnology was established in the various versions of the Perek Shirah , which
without any doubt derives from mystical circles in . the talmudic period. Connected
with this poetical element is the influence that the Merkabah mystics had
on the development of specific portions of the order of prayer, particularly on
the morning kedushah, 9 and later on the piyyutim which were written for these
portions(silluk, o[an, kedushah).
JEWISH GNOSIS AND THE SEFER YEZIRAH
In these stages of Jewish mysticism, the descriptions of the Chariot and its
world occupy a place which in non-Jewish Gnosticism is filled by the theory of
the "aeons," the powers and emanations of God which fill the pleroma, the
divine "fullness." The way in which certain middot, or qualities of God, like
wisdom, understanding, knowledge, truth, faithfulness, righteousness, etc., became
the "aeons" of the Gnostics is paralleled in the tradition of the ma 'aseh
bereshit, although it did not penetrate the basic stages of Merkabah mysticism.
The ten sayings by which the world was created (Avot 5:1) became divine
qualities according to Rav (l:lag. 12a). There is also a tradition that middot such
as these "serve before the Throne of Glory" (ARN 37), thus taking the place
occupied by the J:zayyot and the presiding angels in the Merkabah system. The
semi-mythological speculations of the Gnostics which regarded the qualities as
"aeons" were not admitted into the rabbinic tradition of the Talmud or the
Midrashim, but they did find a place in the more or less heterodox sects of the
minim or /:li??onim. To what extent the growth of Gnostic tendencies within
Judaism itself preceded their development in early Christianity is still the subject
of lively scholarly controversy. Peterson, Haenchen, and Quispel, in particular,
along with several experts on the Dead Sea Scrolls, have tried to prove that
Jewish forms of Gnosis, which retained a belief in the unity of God and rejected
any dualistic notions, came into being before the formation of Christianity and
were centered particularly around the idea of primordial man (following speculation
on Gen. 1 :26; "Adam Kadmon"). The image ofthe Messiah, characteristic of
the Christian Gnostics, was absent here. These scholars have interpreted several