Alexander Maistrovoy
Kabbalah and Gnosticism… Do they have similarities, and if so, what are they? How does their mutual influence manifest itself?
This article is an attempt to find answers to these questions.
Researchers find obvious traces of the influence of Gnosticism on Kabbalah, the esoteric movement of Judaism. Legend attributes the writing of the Kabbalistic Book of Zohar (Shine) to Shimon bar Yochai on Mount Merom near Safed in the 2nd century BC, but it was first published only in the 13th century by the Spanish Jewish theologian Moses de Leon. Later researchers, such as the Jewish scholar Gershom Scholem, based on textual analysis, argue that there was no continuity because de Leon was the compiler of the Book of Zohar, and he needed the reference to bar Yochai to give the work greater authority. “The Book of Zohar,” according to Scholem, simply could not have been written at the beginning of the new era, since it contains phrases and semantic meanings that were unacceptable for Judea at the time of Bar Kochba (1), but understandable and natural for medieval Spain. However, even if we insist that the Book of Zohar was written by Bar Yochai, the period of its writing falls during the heyday of Gnosticism in the east of the Roman Empire – from Alexandria to Asia Minor.
One way or another, Kabbalistic images and symbols amazingly reproduce Gnostic ones.
* “Sefirot” are the same Gnostic “eons” aroused by emanation and united in the “Pleroma”;
*The Kabbalah of Isaac Luria (or Lurianic Kabbalah) conveys a gnostic (in the mono-dualistic version) process provoked by a tragic accident in the transcendental heights of the Spirit. This process leads to distortion and deformation of the original Divine world of harmony, and then its painful subsequent restoration. In this case, the crisis was caused not by the passion and curiosity of one of the Gnostic eons (Sophia), but by the experiments of the Creator himself (“Shattering of the Vessels”), who wished to create a creation through successive emanations. But in both cases, in the Gnostic schools, and in the Lurianic Kabbalah too, sparks of divine light were captured by matter);
*As in the teachings of the Gnostics, a violation of divine harmony opens the way to chaos, darkness and discord, and with them – evil. In the same way, evil is presented not as a self-sufficient, meaningful force, but as the fruit of ignorance, arrogance, and blindness, distortion of the highest divine reality. The role of archons here is played by “shells” (“qlippoth”), just like among the Gnostics, who strive to hold hostage the scattered sparks of light. The names “qlippoth” speak for themselves – these are not hypostases of the “devil”, but rather a designation of phenomena that eclipse the divine principle: ‘Formless’ (“Tohu”), ‘Void’ (“Bohu”), ‘Darkness’ (“Hosheh”). They are subject to the forces of darkness – the demons Moloch, Beelzebub, Lilith, etc., dark entities of a lower order;
*The search for sparks of light scattered in darkness is very similar to the revelation of “pneuma” thrown into the darkness of the material physical body. The discovery and return to the spiritual abode of “divine sparks” leads to the restoration of divine harmony, which Kabbalists call “correction of the world” (“tikkun”). In both cases, the main task of a person is to search and discover the “particle of light” (“pneuma”) in the soul and through it, reunite with the divine world. And this is accomplished by leaving the material world, prayers and meditation;
*The spiritual entities that rule the world, Angels, are like the Gnostic Archons; people are superior to them because they carry within themselves a “spark of light” (among Kabbalists) or “pneuma”, containing knowledge of the higher divine world; *As in several Gnostic schools (especially Eastern ones), the teachings of the Kabbalists contain the idea of transmigration of souls.
This does not, of course, negate the fundamental difference between Gnosticism and Kabbalah.
- Kabbalah remains faithful to Jewish monotheism without questioning it in the slightest. Yahweh, the Creator of the world, as in Judaism, is the highest and good power. He is just, virtuous, merciful, immanent – he is present in people’s lives and participates in it, guiding humanity. He is worshiped and revered as a higher and good power.
Gnosticism is dualistic, and the Demiurge/Yaldabaoth/Yahweh is a lower deity, the “miscarriage of Sophia,” the result of an error in the Kingdom of divine plenitude (Pleroma) and the ruler of the cosmos. He is, at best, limited, blind and ignorant, and at worst, reckless, cruel, and tyrannical. Even in Ptolemy’s benevolent interpretation, he is removed from worldly affairs and is guided by his own goals, incomprehensible to humanity.
He is despised, considered blind and an “apprentice.”
- Kabbalah favors the world of matter, considering it a natural part of the divine universe.
Gnosticism is hostile to matter, and sees it as evil, a source of pain, deception and suffering.
For the Kabbalist, the main task of the soul is to participate in the process of the universal “correction of the world” (“tikkun ulam”), in which the material is combined with the spiritual.
For the Gnostic, the task of the soul is to free itself from the captivity of vicious matter and the laws of the Demiurge and rise to the Pleroma.
- The significant difference is that if the Gnostics did not transfer the divine drama into historical space, the Kabbalists drew a direct parallel between the “Shattering of the Vessels” and their subsequent gathering with the expulsion of the Jews and their subsequent return to their land. The divine drama narrows down to the personal relationship between the Creator and his chosen people.
I am inclined to think that it was the Gnostic movement, which developed in the first century of our era, beginning with Simon Magus and ending with the more developed and profound systems of Basilides and Valentinus, that formed the ideas of Kabbalah, transferring them to the soil of strictly Jewish monotheism and connecting them with the metaphysical drama of the Jewish people. However, some key aspects of Gnosticism, such as the dualism between the supreme deity and the semi-divine lower forces, and the liberation of the spirit from the clutches of vicious matter and the laws of the Demiurge, were emasculated by Kabbalah.
Author of “Gnosticism through the Prism of the Third Millennium: Or between God and the Creator” Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.