Note 34 — Part I

H. Loewe, in an article on the Kabbala in Hastings' Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics, says: "This secret mysticism was no late growth. Difficult though it is to prove the date and origin of this system of philosophy and the influences and causes which produced it, we can be fairly certain that its roots stretch back very far and that the mediæval and Geonic Kabbala was the culmination and not the inception of Jewish esoteric mysticism. From the time of Graetz it has been the fashion to decry the Kabbala and to regard it as a later incrustation, as something of which Judaism had reason to be ashamed." The writer goes on to express the opinion that "the recent tendency requires adjustment. The Kabbala, though later in form than is claimed by its adherents, is far older in material than is allowed by its detractors."