Note 1 — INTRODUCTION

The word signifies reception, and in Rabbinical Hebrew it denotes doctrine so communicated—that is to say, by a tradition handed down or received from the past. John Reuchlin specifies it as symbolical reception, signifying that the doctrine is not comprised simply in its surface meaning. He says further that it is of Divine Revelation, and that it belongs primarily to the life-giving contemplation of God. This is in the universal sense, but it is concerned also with secret teaching respecting particular things, meaning things manifest—contemplatio formarum separatarum.