by Will Durant
Sometime in the first century A.D. there appeared in Babylonia an esoteric book called Sefer Yezira—The Book of Creation. Mystic devotees, including Jehuda Halevi, attributed its composition to Abraham and God. Creation, it taught, had been effected through the mediation of ten sefiroth— numbers or principles: the spirit of God, three emanations therefrom—air, water, and fire, three spatial dimensions to the left, and three dimensions to the right. These principles determined the content, while the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet determined the forms through which creation could be understood by the human mind. The book elicited learned commentaries, from Saadia to the nineteenth century.
About 840 a Babylonian rabbi brought these mystic doctrines to the Jews of Italy, whence they spread to Germany, Provence, and Spain. Ibn Gabirol was probably influenced by them in his theory of the intermediate beings between God and the world. Abraham ben David of Posquières used the “secret tradition” as a means of drawing Jews away from the rationalism of Maimonides. His son Isaac the Blind and his pupil Azriel were probably the authors (c. 1190) of the Sefer-ha-Bahir, or Book of Light, a mystical commentary on the first chapter of Genesis; here the demiurgic emanations of the Sefer Yezira were changed into Light, Wisdom, and Reason; and this triplication of the Logos was offered as a Jewish Trinity.82 Eleazar of Worms (1176-1238) and Abraham ben Samuel Abulafia (1240-91) offered the Secret Doctrine as a more profound and rewarding study than the Talmud. Like Islamic and German mystics, they applied the sensuous language of love and marriage to the relation between the soul and God.
By the thirteenth century the word qabala, tradition, had come into general use to describe the Secret Doctrine in all its phases and products. About 1295 Moses ben Shem Tob of Leon published the third Cabalistic classic, the Sefer ha-Zohar, or Book of Splendor. He ascribed its composition to Simon ben Yohai, a tanna of the second century; Simon, said Moses, had been inspired by the angels and the ten sefiroth to reveal to his esoteric readers secrets formerly reserved for the days of the coming Messiah. All the elements of the Cabala were brought together in the Zohar: the all-inclusiveness of a God knowable only through love, the Tetragrammaton, the creative demiurges and emanations, the Platonic analogy of macrocosm and microcosm, the date and mode of the Messiah’s coming, the pre-existence and transmigration of the soul, the mystical meaning of ritual acts, numbers, letters, points, and strokes, the use of ciphers, acrostics, and the backward reading of words, the symbolical interpretation of Biblical texts, and the conception of woman as sin and yet as also the embodiment of the mystery of creation. Moses of Leon marred his performance by making Simon ben Yohai refer to an eclipse of 1264 in Rome, and use several ideas apparently unknown before the thirteenth century. He deceived many, but not his wife; she confessed that her Moses thought Simon an excellent financial device.83 The success of the book inspired similiar forgeries, and some later Cabalists paid Moses in his own counterfeit by publishing their speculations under his name.
The influence of the Cabala was far-reaching. For a time the Zohar rivaled the Talmud as the favorite study of the Jews; some Cabalists attacked the Talmud as antiquated, literalistic logic-chopping; and some Talmudists, including the learned Nachmanides, were strongly influenced by the Cabalistic school. Belief in the authenticity and divine inspiration of the Cabala was widespread among European Jews.84 Their work in science and philosophy suffered correspondingly, and the Golden Age of Maimonides ended in the brilliant nonsense of the Zohar. Even upon Christian thinkers the Cabala exercised some fascination. Raymond Lully (1235?—1315) adapted from it the number and letter mysticism of his Ars magna; Pico della Mirandola (1463-94) thought that he had found in the Cabala final proofs for the divinity of Christ.85 Paracelsus, Cornelius Agrippa, Robert Fludd, Henry More, and other Christian mystics fed on its speculations; Johannes Reuchlin (1455-1522) confessed to poaching upon the Cabala for his theology; and perhaps Cabalistic ideas infected Jakob Böhme (1575-1624). If a greater proportion of Jews than of Moslems or Christians sought consolation in mystic revelations, it was because this world turned its worst face to them, and forced them, for life’s sake, to cloak reality in a web of imagination and desire. It is the unfortunate who must believe that God has chosen them for His own.
VIII. RELEASE
From mystic exaltation, Messianic disillusionment, periodic persecution, and the hard routine of economic life, the medieval Jews found refuge in the obscurity of their congregations and the consolations of their ritual and creed. They celebrated with piety the festivals that recalled their history, their tribulations, and their ancient glory, and patiently adjusted to their urban existence the ceremonies that once had divided the agricultural year. The vanishing Qaraites kept the Sabbath in darkness and cold, lest they violate the Law by kindling fires or lighting lamps; but most Jews, while the rabbis winked, brought in Christian friends or servitors to keep the fires burning and tend the lights. Every chance for a banquet was seized with generosity and pomp: the family gave a feast on the circumcision or confirmation of a son, the betrothal or marriage of a son or daughter, the visit of a noted scholar or relative, the occurrence of some religious festival. Sumptuary regulations of the rabbis forbade the providers of such banquets to invite more than twenty men, ten women, five girls, and all relatives up to the third generation. A wedding feast sometimes lasted a week, and not even the Sabbath was allowed to interrupt it. The bridal pair were crowned with roses, myrtle, and olive branches; their path was strewn with nuts and wheat; barley grains were thrown over them as a hint to fertility; songs and quips accompanied every stage of the event; and in later medieval days a professional jester was engaged to ensure full merriment. Sometimes his jests were mercilessly truthful; but almost always he accepted Hillel’s genial decree, that “every bride is beautiful.”86
So the passing generation celebrated its own replacement, rejoiced in its children’s children, and subsided into a harassed but kindly old age. We see the faces of such old Jews in Rembrandt’s portraits: features bearing the history of the people and the individual, beards breathing wisdom, eyes haunted with sad memories but softened with indulgent love. Nothing in Moslem or Christian morals could surpass the mutual affection of young and old in Judaism, the love that overlooks all faults, the quiet guidance of immaturity by experience, and the dignity with which the life fully lived accepts the naturalness of death.
When he made his will the Jew left not only worldly goods to his offspring, but spiritual counsel. “Be one of the first in synagogue,” reads the will of Eleazar of Mainz (c. 1337); “do not speak during prayers; repeat the responses; and after the service do acts of kindness.” And then the final instruction:
Wash me clean, comb my hair, trim my nails, as I was wont to do in my lifetime, so that I may go clean to my eternal resting place, just as I used to go on every Sabbath to the synagogue. Put me in the ground at the right hand of my father; if the space be a little narrow, I am sure that he loves me well enough to make room for me by his side.87
When the last breath was drawn, the eyes and mouth of the dead were closed by the eldest son or the most distinguished son or relative; the body was bathed and anointed with aromatic unguents, and wrapped in spotless linen. Almost everyone belonged to a burial society, which now took the corpse, watched over it, gave it the last religious rites, and accompanied it to the grave. In the funeral the pallbearers walked with bare feet; the women preceded the bier, chanted a dirge, and beat a drum. Any stranger who encountered the procession was expected to fall in with it and accompany it to the grave. Usually the coffin was placed near those of dead relatives; to be buried was for a man “to lie with his fathers,” “to be gathered unto his people.” The mourners did not despair. They knew that though the individual might die, Israel would carry on.
BOOK IV
THE DARK AGES
566–1095
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE FOR BOOK IV
486–751:
Merovingian dynasty in Gaul
&nb
sp; 490–543:
St. Benedict
520–60:
Growth of Irish academies
521–98:
St. Columba
543–615:
St. Columban
568–774:
Lombard kingdom in Italy
568f:
Founding of Venice
582–602:
Maurice Eastern emperor
590–604:
Pope Gregory I the Great
590–616:
Ethelbert King of Kent
597:
Augustine converts England
600–1100:
fl. Gregorian chant
602–10:
Usurpation of Phocas
610–41:
Heraclius Eastern emperor
625–90:
Paul of Ægina, physician
629–38:
Dagobert King of the Franks
640:
Slavs enter the Balkans
c. 650:
Beowulf; Cædmon, poet
651:
Hôtel-Dieu founded at Paris
673–735:
Venerable Bede, historian
680–754:
Boniface, apostle to Germany
687–714:
Pepin the Younger rules Franks
697
First doge in Venice
713–16:
Anastasius II Eastern emp.
717–41:
Leo III the Isaurian, Eastern emp.
726f:
Iconoclastic movement in Byzantium
735:
The School of York
735–804:
Alcuin, educator
751–68:
Pepin the Short rules Franks
751–987:
Carolingian dynasty of Frank kings
756:
Donation of Pepin establishes temporal power of popes
768–814:
Charlemagne King of the Franks
772–804:
Charlemagne wars against Saxons
774:
Charlemagne annexes Lombard crown
774–1200:
Romanesque architecture
776–856:
Rabanus Maurus, educator
778:
Charlemagne in Spain; Roland at Roncesvalles
780–90:
Irene regent at Constantinople
787:
Danes begin to raid England
795:
Danes begin to raid Ireland
797–802:
Irene Eastern “emperor”
800:
Pope Leo III crowns Charlemagne emperor of Roman Empire
802:
fl. Bulgaria under Khan Krum
813–20:
Leo V the Armenian Eastern emp.
814–40:
Louis I the Pious King of the Franks
815–77:
John Scotus Erigena, phil’r
c. 820:
The Variagi enter Russia
829:
Egbert founds Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy & becomes first King of England
829–42:
Theophilus I Eastern emperor
841–924:
Norse raids in France
843:
Partition of Verdun; Ludwig becomes first King of Germany
845–82:
Hincmar Bishop of Reims
848f:
Medical School of Salerno
c. 850:
The Book of Kells; Leo of Salonika, math’n
852–88:
Boris Bulgarian khan & saint
857–91:
Photius patriarch at C’ple
858–67:
Pope Nicholas I
859:
Rurik Grand Prince of Russia
860–933:
Harald Haarfager first King of Norway
862:
The Variagi at Novgorod
863:
Mission of Cyril and Methodius to Moravians
867–86:
Basil I founds Macedonian dynasty
871–901:
Alfred the Great
872:
Norsemen colonize Iceland
875–7:
Charles the Bald, Western emp.
886:
Norse besiege Paris
886–912:
Leo VI the Wise, Eastern emp.
887f:
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
888:
Odo King of France
893–927:
Simeon Bulgar emperor
899–943:
Magyars ravage Europe
905:
Sancho I founds Kingdom of Navarre
910:
Abbey of Cluny founded
911:
Conrad I King of Germany; Rollo Duke of Normandy
912–50:
Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus
c. 917:
The Greek Anthology
919–36:
Henry I the Fowler King of Germany
925–88:
St. Dunstan
928–35:
Venceslas I King of Bohemia
930:
Icelandic Althing est’d
934–60:
Haakon the Good King of Norway
936–73:
Otto I King of Germany
950:
Zenith of medieval Irish literature
955:
Otto defeats Magyars on the Lechfeld
961:
Convent of St. Lavra on Mt. Athos
962:
Otto I Western Roman emperor
963:
Otto deposes Pope John XII
963–9:
Nicephorus Phocas Eastern emp.
965–95:
Haakon the “Great Earl” King of Norway
968:
Hroswitha, dramatist
973—83:
Otto II of Germany
975–1035:
Sancho the Great King of Navarre
976:
Suidas’ Lexicon
976–1014:
Brian Borumha King of Munster
976–1026:
Basil II Eastern emperor
976–1071:
St. Mark’s at Venice
980–1015:
Vladimir I Prince of Kiev
983–1002:
Otto III of Germany
987–96:
Hugh Capet founds Capetian dynasty of French kings
989:
Russia converted to Christianity
992–1025:
Boleslav I first King of Poland
994f:
Cluny monastic reform
997–1038:
St. Stephen King of Hungary
999–1003:
Pope Sylvester II (Gerbert)
1000:
Leif Ericsson in “Vinland”
1002–24:
Henry II of Germany
1007–28:
Fulbert Bishop of Chartres
1009–1200:
German Romanesque
1013:
Sweyn of Denmark conquers England
1014:
Brian Borumha defeats Norse at Clontarf
1015–30:
St. Olaf King of Norway
1016–35:
Cnut King of England
1018–80:
Michael Psellus, historian
1022–87:
Constantine the African, translator
1024–39:
Conrad II of Germany
1028–50:
Zoë and Theodora rule Eastern Empire
1033–1109:
St. Anselm
1034–40:
Duncan I King of Scotland
1035–47:
Magnus the Good King of Norway
1039–56:
Henry III of Germany
1040–52:
Macbeth us
urper King of Scotland
1040–99:
Rodrigo Diaz el Cid
1043–66:
Edward the Confessor King of England
1046–71:
Church of St. Ambrose at Milan
1048f:
Abbey of Jumièges
1049–54:
Pope Leo IX